In today’s troubled economic times, companies that fall may want to declare bankruptcy. Companies with registered trademarks may want to continue to use the trademarks and not lose any value in the brands. However, protecting the trademark from the beginning is paramount – not just registration, but understanding that it is an asset that other […] The post Video Blog 28: Trademarks and Bankruptcy Part I (Trademarks are Assets) appeared first on Verna Law, P.C. - Intellectual Property Law Firm, Westchester County, New York.

Law & Business - the podcast about legal issues and how they affect your business.

Video Blog 28: Trademarks and Bankruptcy Part I (Trademarks are Assets)

Coming aboard the "Law & Business" Podcast is Polina Chtchelok. Polina is an Australian lawyer and engineer. She started her career in the energy sector, where after having lived in 5 different countries and working on various investments and projects, she saw a business opportunity due to lack of specific legal services and she moved from working in-house to creating her own niche market law firm in a controversial and challenging business environment of Bolivia in South America. After completing Executive MBA from HEC Paris with specialization in finance end entrepreneurship her focus now is on development of financial and operational strategies for business growth. This episode on how to define a business vs. how to define a startup was fun to record and we hope you enjoy it, also. Anthony Verna: (00:02)All right. Welcome to the Law and Business podcast, the most blandly named podcast out there. With me today is Polina Chtchelok. Polina, how you doing?Polina Chtchelok:I’m good, and you? Anthony Verna:I’m well. How badly did I butcher your last name?Polina Chtchelok:It was actually quite well. Anthony Verrna:All right. Oh, good. Okay. That's because your last name is Polish in nature. Polina Chtchelok:Russian. Anthony Verna:Russian, I’m sorry, I keep making that mistake. I grew up near our Lady of Czestochowa, which is I believe a Ukrainian saint. So anyway, I've learned a little bit about trying to figure out some of the Eastern Europe… Polina Chtchelok: (00:53)The region of my last name is Ukrainian Cossacks. Anthony Verrna: (00:58)Okay. Okay. So, all right. Thank you for the diversion. Uh, Paulina is an Australian lawyer and engineer. Speaking of a diversion. You started your career in the energy sector after having lived in five different countries, working on various investment and projects. Polina, you saw business opportunity due to lack of specific legal services. And you moved from working with in-house to creating your own niche market law firm in a controversial and challenging business environment in Bolivia, in South America. And then after completing your executive MBA from HEC Paris, with specialization in finance and entrepreneurship, your focus is now on development of financial and operational strategies for business growth. So welcome because law and business is exactly where you and I collide and intersect and thanks for being on today. Polina Chtchelok:Oh, thank you for having me here. Anthony Verna:Hey, so we're going to talk a little bit about what you think of as an ongoing concern for a business versus a startup. And hopefully our listeners can take away some ideas for thinking about if you're a startup out there thinking about taking your startup, what do I need to do to be an ongoing business concern? Polina Chtchelok: (02:14)It's a very complex subject, and it's a very current subject because as you know, with COVID-19, there's a lot of businesses being impacted. You have to shut down, but at the same time, COVID-19 accelerated in entrepreneurship. It's accelerated creation of startups. Its accelerated people being innovative and creative because of their restrictions they've been under. They had to think of new ways of doing a business, implement changes to keep the business afloat and, and even the current customers, they change their habits. And you had to adjust to these changes in the habits of your customers. Anthony Verna: (03:06)I completely agree. And we see that as well. We're seeing a lot more trademark applications come through the door. We're seeing a lot of patent application inquiries, and a lot of people trying to figure out if their invention is something that they want to invest the time and the money to get a patent application. And, that really begins one of the thoughts, like how much have you invested of your own money in your business? Polina Chtchelok: (03:35)Well, before we get into this point in terms of how much we invest,

Law and Business Podcast Episode 60 – with Polina Chtchelok – How to Define a Business vs. a Startup

It's always fun when your friends drop in for a podcast episode. My guest this time is my friend, the talented and lovely Andromeda Turre. Andromeda is a jazz singer whose latest project is called Growing up Jazz, a series about the influence of jazz on the American soul that runs parallel to her life story as the daughter of two jazz musicians. Andromeda had some copyright questions. These questions came from the musician's perspective, especially as we discussed the need for a copyright registration in the music and a need for a copyright registration in the sound recording (aka "sync license" when musicians license the recording). However, everyone who works in all media should find it informative and we want Andromeda back on soon. BTW - nobody is allowed to use "poor man's copyright" on the podcast anymore. That term is officially banned. Anthony Verna: (00:03)And welcome to the Law and Business podcast. I’m here with my friend Andromeda Turre. How you doing? Andromeda Turre: (00:09)I'm so good. And thank you so much for inviting me on to talk to you today. Anthony Verna: (00:13)Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming. And by the way, let's tell everybody listening. as Andromeda is a jazz singer and where can everybody find your stuff on the web? Andromeda Turre: (00:26)You can find it at andromedaturre.com. I'm on Spotify. I'm on iTunes, wherever you download or stream music, you can find my music and, yeah, that's it. Anthony Verna: (00:36)Well, thank you for coming. And so let's talk a little bit about copyright stuff, especially for, for the musician, especially the musician inside. Well, you've got a musicians inside and outside of you, so… Andromeda Turre: (00:55)But there's so many questions about copyright that I think so many musicians will want the answers to, and I know that you can help us out. So, I've got some questions for you today.Anthony Verna: Hit me with the questions. That's what we’re here for.Andromeda TurreOkay. My first question is: Why do musicians need to copyright their music? It can be expensive. And I know that you can copyright things as a group or as an individual song. Give us the pitch as to why we should do this. Anthony Verna: (01:24)Sure. So, in the United States… Let's start here… In the United States, without any kind of registration, if there's infringement, you can't file a lawsuit. So, I always say with copyright law, number one, it's the entry for, for a lawsuit and really it's a catalog as well. So, if you register every single song, you will be filing the composer's name, the date that it was composed, chances are where. And so, in that particular aspect, as your career grows, as your catalog grows, your copyright catalog grows. So, you have that barrier court and you have a catalog. So this way, if somebody needs to license something from you… I'm sure a lot of musicians are also members of ASCAP, BMI or SESAC. And therefore, they've got to have that catalog in there for licensing as well. Having the copyright registration is kind of the glue to making all of that work. Now also, besides just entering court, if you have the registration before any infringement happens, you are entitled to at least the potential for more damages. So for example, if you've registered your song and somebody copies it, whether it's intentional or unintentional, but if somebody copies your song passes it off as their own, and you get no royalties from it, then you can file a lawsuit and you can ask for actual damages. In other words, the loss monies. You can ask for what we call statutory damages, which is an easier accounting of those monies. And you can ask for attorney's fees as well, and this way copyright infringements would be worth it. If you don't file that lawsuit, you will… I mean, if you don't, excuse me, file your copyright before the infringement, you are not entitled to a statutory damages and you are not entitled to attorney's fees...

Law & Business Podcast: Episode 59 Musician Andromeda Turre has Copyright Questions

On Episode 58 of the "Law & Business" Podcast, Anthony sits down with James Kwon, the CEO and Executive Strategy Chef of Figmints, a digital marketing agency in Providence, Rhode Island. Figmints has cracked the code on creating, developing, and delivering the scalable, repeatable marketing, and sales models that create results, drive revenue, and keep its clients smiling. The conversation is about the Three Items Marketers Need to Know Now - right now, with the COVID pandemic hitting. Earlier, the podcast discussed why now is a perfect time for companies to continue to advertise - here are some thoughts on the strategy of how to advertise and market. A lightly-edited transcript follows: Anthony Verna: (00:02)All right, everyone. Welcome to the Law and Business podcast. With me is James Kwon from Figments. How are you doing James? James Kwon:I'm doing as well as I can be. Thanks, Anthony. Anthony Verna:You're feeling a little cabin fever lately? James Kwon:There's certainly the Groundhog Day scenario of repetition. I just had a great morning check-in huddle with the team and just reminding them to break the repetition and to stay sane. And that was my tip for this week. Anthony Verna:I think that's a very good, good tip for this week and I have to check in with my team as well. Our team is split between the East coast and the West coast. So I generally don't have like a one team phone call. James Kwon:That makes sense. Anthony Verna:Yeah. So James, tell us a little bit about yourself and a little about Figments as an agency. James Kwon: (00:58)Yeah, happy to. So, I run a digital marketing firm, full service digital firm called figments fig M I N T s.com. And, we do storytelling that actually proves revenue results. So start with brand storytelling, logo design, website design development, because of course we have to, but this last part where we're actually proving results for clients by setting up digital automation, content creation, thought leadership so we can drive traffic and see real results happen, and we actually do some of those calls on behalf of the client. So we're really trying to take as much of that funnel responsibility as possible. And I've been running an agency now for, it's our eighth year. We're about 20 full time employees. Since Figments I've started about nine companies so I'm a little bit of a serial entrepreneur. Have a little, some startups and some software companies and some subsidiaries.I just got invited to speak at Inbound. I’m not sure if you're familiar with it. Anthony Verna:I am certainly familiar. I'm certainly familiar with it. I mean, everybody listening is, sure. James Kwon:So Inbound, it's the largest marketing conference in the world. It's run by the software tool, HubSpot's, which is very fast growing. It's a hot stock to keep your eye on and just got invited to speak which is flattering. Anthony Verna:One particular question you certainly said that your agency helps with thought leadership, which is a buzzword, but I'm gonna have you break it down. What does thought leadership exactly mean? James Kwon:Yeah, great question. So this day… Anthony Verna:I only try to ask the great ones, man. I try not to ask stupid ones. James Kwon:Great job so far. So the thought leadership is a principle behind content marketing where today buyers are more informed than ever because they can go online, they can research blogs, they just go to Google and start searching. Well, what do I need to know if I'm going to hire a great patent attorney? Or what do I need to know if I'm going to hire a great agency? And you can find a lot of information. The person who can author that great content becomes the authority in that world. And so, this is the category we call thought leadership. If you can start to author a lot of great content, all of a sudden your name gets attached to all these great SEO content, all these great keywords when people are search...

Law & Business Podcast: Episode 58 Anthony Verna and James Kwon – Three Items Marketers Need to Know Now

Anthony Verna sat down with John Eastwood of Eiger Law in Taipei, Taiwan to talk about some of the effects of the COVID pandemic. Some of the topics covered are intellectual property, especially in relationship to bankruptcy, and employment law across borders and oceans. Supply chains are affected, also. Anthony Verna: (00:02)And welcome to the Law and Business podcast. On this episode is the most frequent guest, John Eastwood. How are you doing, John? John Eastwood:Doing well, doing well. I'm here in Taipei. My colleagues in Shanghai have apparently weathered quite a bit of the storm in the sense that Shanghai has not been so heavily affected. Taiwan, in the midst of this Corona virus situation is actually doing really well. It's become a bit of a model for… and it's been getting plaudits from different ends of the political spectrum of the United States. You get like the Wall Street Journal recently from kind of, an editorial perspective. It was lauding that Taiwan could be a model for what other countries could do. And then on the other side of the spectrum, I think we just got a shout out from Barbara Streisand on Twitter. The entertaining thing for that. The Taiwan government. I mean, I love the job of doing on Corona virus and it was currently, we're still living in the three hundreds at this point. We hear on as we recorded this in early April. But in terms of number of in fact the event, the administrative foreign affairs and Taiwan retweeted Barbara Streisand, so a tweet and said, Oh, you know, you're just basically, you're so awesome. Thank you for saying this. And one can only just look at how exactly the same concept of cooperation to reach great heights together in a mutually working mutually between scientists and government are exactly mirrored in the story for A Star is Born and you haven't seen A Star is Born. Kris Kristofferson does not come out on the ending of A Star is Born. Anthony Verna:Well at least that version of it, John. This is what the fourth version of that story? John Eastwood:I was just talking with my wife and kids about that this morning. We're up to four versions of A Star is Born. Anthony Verna:Actually, I think it's five. John Eastwood: (02:37)Any of them end well? Well, they're not happy stories, but you know, it's helpful idea. Like a star rises and one falls and you know, so that's not the point of the story is not that two stars rise together and reach their greatest heights and happiness anyway. Any hoo anyhoo yeah, no. See these are things that are the Chinese famous. He said these are interesting times. Anthony Verna: (03:04)What's it like going in and out of buildings in Taipei? Like are you… I mean, we're stuck at home. We're on an order that if it's not essential, and of course the definition of essential I think is constitutionally problematic because you've got states like New York that says that say that alcohol is not a problem. Pennsylvania says we're shutting down all the alcohol stores cause they're state run. And Massachusetts has said that alcohol is essential. Medical marijuana is not essential. So there might be a little vagueness here as to what, what essential might be, but we're not going out unless it's the grocery store and even then, I hope we stocked up long enough to keep us interested in dinner for a while. That gigantic pack of chicken thighs is not exactly exciting, but you know, it's in the freezer. John Eastwood: (04:13)We do approach the trips to Costco like it's a military operation, like, you know, in and out and got the masks and don't touch it other than what we're buying. And we do have like for example, right now I'm in the office, but we're in fact coming up this next week, we're implementing, even though Taiwan is in a very fortunate situation that could change at any time. And so we aligned with that. We are implementing a lot of… it's the new acronym for me. W F H - work from home and it's the first time I've had ...

Law & Business Episode 57: Intellectual Property, Bankruptcy, and Employment Law Effects due to COVID with John Eastwood

Trademarks are meant to signify the source and quality of goods or services. Therefore, trademarks that are descriptive are relatively disfavored. How can someone register a descriptive trademark? I discuss in this video blog! Here is a lightly edited version of the transcript: Hi, I’m Anthony Verna, managing partner at Verna Law, where we focus […] The post Video Blog 32: Trademark FAQ: How Can Someone Register a Descriptive Trademark? appeared first on Verna Law, P.C. - Intellectual Property Law Firm, Westchester County, New York.

Video Blog 32: Trademark FAQ: How Can Someone Register a Descriptive Trademark?

This is another video blog to go with our Patent Law FAQ – we hope you continue to enjoy our video blogs. Here is a lighted-edited transcript of the blog: Can I get a patent on my software? I’m Anthony Verna, managing partner of Verna Law, P.C, where we focus on intellectual property and advertising […] The post Video Blog 31: Patent FAQ: Can I get a Patent on my Software Invention? appeared first on Verna Law, P.C. - Intellectual Property Law Firm, Westchester County, New York.

Video Blog 31: Patent FAQ: Can I get a Patent on my Software Invention?

At Verna Law, P.C., we are doing a series of video blogs that coincide with our FAQs. This video answers the question “What is a patent?” Hi, I’m Anthony Verna, managing partner of Verna Law, P.C. where our team focuses on intellectual property and advertising law. We’re starting at the beginning of patent law for […] The post Video Blog 30 Patent FAQ: What is a Patent? appeared first on Verna Law, P.C. - Intellectual Property Law Firm, Westchester County, New York.

Video Blog 30 Patent FAQ: What is a Patent?

The full transcript of this video blog can be seen on our Copyright vs. Trademark page: https://vernalaw.com/copyright-vs-trademark-law/ The post Video Blog 29: Copyright vs Trademark appeared first on Verna Law, P.C. - Intellectual Property Law Firm, Westchester County, New York.

Video Blog 29: Copyright vs Trademark

In Episode 56 of the “Law & Business” podcast, Anthony speaks to Jim Frawley of Bellwether (at bellwetherhub.com), an executive coach. Jim helps his clients with that a slight push, or a friendly face when they try something new. Whatever you want Jim and Bellwether to be, that’s what they can be. Don’t just talk […] The post Law & Business Episode 56: Changing Mindsets with Jim Frawley appeared first on Verna Law, P.C. - Intellectual Property Law Firm, Westchester County, New York.

Law & Business Episode 56: Changing Mindsets with Jim Frawley

In Episode 55 of the “Law & Business” Podcast, Anthony speaks with Chelsey Pendock of Innovision Advertising. Innovision is an advertising placement agency and Chelsey discusses the sudden changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which includes which businesses are advertising, and why it is still important to advertise in more difficult economic times. Enjoy! Anthony […] The post Law & Business Episode 55 with Chelsey Pendock: Advertise in Difficult Times appeared first on Verna Law, P.C. - Intellectual Property Law Firm, Westchester County, New York.

Law & Business Episode 55 with Chelsey Pendock: Advertise in Difficult Times

It is our final episode with the Nessa Group, even though our relationship will last a long time. In this episode, the Nessa Group discusses a business with a unique and very special product. The product has the ability to help other businesses greatly. However, the business is built on shaky ground and the discussion […] The post Law & Business Podcast Episode 54: A Unique Product does not a Business Make appeared first on Verna Law, P.C. - Intellectual Property Law Firm, Westchester County, New York.

Law & Business Podcast Episode 54: A Unique Product does not a Business Make

It is the seventh and penultimate episode of this special mini-series with the Nessa Group, in which the discussion is about a plush toy company that is a start-up. The toy company has been able to services from Verna Law and the Nessa Group in order to get started – a mixture of intellectual property […] The post Law & Business Podcast Episode 53: A Plush Toy Client Begins with Consultants appeared first on Verna Law, P.C. - Intellectual Property Law Firm, Westchester County, New York.

Law & Business Podcast Episode 53: A Plush Toy Client Begins with Consultants

Be well, everyone. Thank you for listening. Do not forget to rate the “Law & Business” Podcast on your podcast app! In this roundtable episode with the Nessa Group, we discuss the importance of accredited investors in venture capital, what it means to be an accredited investor, what the possible pitfalls are if the investors […] The post Law & Business Podcast Episode 52: The Importance of Accredited Investors in Venture Capital appeared first on Verna Law, P.C. - Intellectual Property Law Firm, Westchester County, New York.

Law & Business Podcast Episode 52: The Importance of Accredited Investors in Venture Capital

In Episode 51 of the “Law & Business” Podcast, we take a look at a company that makes a plush product that is also a curtain tie-back. It is a very useful product, but one that also features the ability to be very fanciful. So the group takes a look at how the Nessa Group […] The post Law & Business Podcast Episode 51: A Nessa Group Case Study with Improving a Plush Company’s Business appeared first on Verna Law, P.C. - Intellectual Property Law Firm, Westchester County, New York.

Law & Business Podcast Episode 51: A Nessa Group Case Study with Improving a Plush Company’s Business

Copyrights, Trademarks, Patents, Domain Disputes and business protection

Video Blog 28: Trademarks and Bankruptcy Part I (Trademarks ...