It's so exciting to not only be part of this event, but to
follow on the heels of that wonderful Fireside Chat. The
conversation between Coke and Wynn really set the table for the
conversation that I am going to to help to lead with this
amazing panel of women women who serve in various different roles
both as entrepreneurs and supporting the entrepreneurship
community as it was once said, small business isn't for the
faint of heart.
It's for the brave, the patient, the persistent, the
overcomers, an each and every one of these women who's on
this panel today can truly be seen as an overcomer.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to introduce each of them
to you very, very briefly and then turn to each of them to
have them tell you about their current role and how they play a
role in the world of entrepreneurship. First and
foremost, our first panelist is Jennifer Camacho, who is the
founder in principle member of Title, which is a next Gen law
firm working with companies and investors in the Life science
industry. Previously, she was the chief legal Officer for
Torque Therapeutics. She's also a member of our Patent Public
Advisory Committee. I will allow Jennifer to tell you more about
herself in just a moment. Also on our panel today is Molly
Kocialski. Molly serves as the director of the Rocky Mountain
Regional Office for the United States Patent and Trademark
Office. She brings more than 20 years of intellectual property
experience to the USPTO. Most recently, Molly was the senior
patent counsel at Oracle America, where she was
responsible for managing and.
Active patent prosecution docket and was also responsible for all
of the post grant procedures and patent investigations for Oracle
in its subsidiaries.
Prior to Oracle, she worked for Qwest Corporation.
3rd and certainly not least in though anyway, is Kim Mackwood,
who is the owner and inventor of click and carry and you're going
to be excited to hear her story as truly the entrepreneur panel.
She started clicking carry in May of 2008 and prior to that
time had served as an executive neuroscience sales specialist
with Acadia Pharmaceuticals. She had also worked as a market
development consultant for Medtronic and it was a specialty
representative In the neurological and psychological
side of Schwarz Pharma and Wyeth Arzt Pharmaceuticals. So as you
can see, we have a wide range of talents and expertise here on
our panel. Today, with that, I would like to turn to Jennifer
to first again introduced herself in her own words and
talk to you about her experience in working with entrepreneurs
and the work that she's doing today, Jennifer, please.
Jennifer, unfortunately you are on mute.
How about that? Thank you Elizabeth and good afternoon to
everybody. As Elizabeth mentioned, I am an attorney,
Anna founder and principal member of Title, which is wholly
a patent and IP centric law firm. It's it's a lot of fun
now. Before launching Title, I was the general Counsel and
Chief Legal Officer for a number of years at a venture backed
startup in cancer immunotherapy And at as synthetic
biology Company and title is the most recent, an definitely my
most significant. Have it yet in my professional career. It's
it's just been fantastic. I'm also a member of the Patent
Public Advisory Committee in PPAC as we call it and It has
nine members from the public representing various interests
in the patent stakeholder
community. I have spent a great deal of time over the past 25
years working with venture backed startups and early stage
companies, primarily in the Life Sciences field. So that's the
perspective that I bring to PPAC now would I'd love to
talk about today is as part of the PPAC I chair the
Innovation Expansion Subcommittee, along with my
colleague and good friend Valencia Martin Wallace, who you
will hear from in the next panel now, the Invention
expansion initiative is focused on increasing the engagement of
underrepresented groups. Such as women in innovation. In our
patent system, this mission is really, really important to me
and to many others, and it's it's truly personal to me and I
am so happy to be here with all of you today to talk about
women entrepreneurship.
Thank you, Jennifer, and thank you for touching on the National
Council for expanding American innovation, and I'm sure that
throughout our conversation today you'll have another
opportunity to weave in. That content is left.
At this time I'd like to turn to Molly Kocialski. Molly.
Hi everybody, I'm Molly, I am the regional director for the
Rocky Mountain US Patent and Trademark Office. Like Jennifer,
I've pivoted a few times in my career, not necessarily those
straying from what I refer to as my first love, which is
intellectual property and helping people understand
intellectual property and how it works for them. I always like to
say there isn't an IP rodeo I haven't written in.
I've had the I've had the absolute honor of being apart of
so many fascinating aspects of intellectual property, both from
the prosecution in the litigation side as well as from
a private practice side and in-house counsel side And I
think you know, and and gotten to do some really neat things
with mergers and acquisitions and bankruptcy, and even a
little bit of trust to the states work when it comes to
intellectual property, but it's been an amazing ride and it's
Even better, being at the agency, you know Coke and Wynn
talked about how amazing this agency is in in having as many
women as we do in our leadership, as many women as we
get to practice with. And it is so amazing to be here and to be
using all of those skills that I gained over the 20 years when I
was an attorney to help others understand the intellectual
property system. Maybe demystify the intellectual property system
a little bit.
And demystify the agency for those people who are so you
know such sophisticated users. So that's Me.
Thank you Molly. I as as as with Jennifer, you certainly bring a
wealth of expertise to our conversation today and and
certainly to your role as the Rocky Mountain Regional Director
working directly with entrepreneurs today. It's it's
lovely to see and it's going to be a great conversation how each
of us pivot in our own professional capacity, but we
also witness and experience and share in the pivot of others and
those that we work with. Without further ado, I'd like to turn to
our final panelist member.
To introduce herself and Kim Meckwood please, the stage is
yours. Hello everyone, it's such an honor to be. Here I I'm Kim
Meckwood and I'm the owner and inventor of click n carry which
is a simple handle device that allows shoppers to manage and
carrying multiple bags at once, either in your hand or one over
your shoulder for hands free carry, this is a really
special honor for me because my proudest accomplishment is when
I was awarded to utility patents by the United States Patent and
Trademark Office. So to be on a panel and to talk about my
invention is it's just a dream come true and I'm here to talk
about my latest pivot which was leaving a secure, safe job
that pays well to be a solo entrepreneur promoting my
product. So I'm I'm thrilled to be here. I can't wait to
share my experiences with you and thank you USPTO for
inviting me. I'm thrilled.
Kim, thank you and congratulations on your two US
utility patents. I'm sure those are just the first of many if if
most entrepreneurs are any example, once you get bit by
that patent bug it's often a lifelong career with that ladies
I am going to turn to our first question an I invite and
encourage each and everyone of you to jump in on whichever
questions that you feel comfortable answering your
Insights and expertise are welcomed on each and every
question. Our first question and really tide to the title
of our topic today when is a pivot necessary for a
company or individual and what are some of those key
considerations and steps to take for a successful pivot?
I'll jump in and out first.
Kim, why don't you go first? OK, I will. I'll talk about my
recent pivot, it it was. It was a scary pivot for me because as
I mentioned I had a safe and secure job with insurance and a
regular salary coming in. But I had the opportunity because of
Shark Tank to receive pretty much overnight PR and I had to
capitalize on that opportunity. So knowing that I was going to
be on the show, I prepared all summer in my spare time.
To make sure that I had a 3PL
which is a dis. Solution Center set up. I made sure that my
website was going to have the proper amount of capability so I
could handle all of the traffic. I set up PR to capitalize on the
opportunity, so I prepared all these things in time for the
airing of my segment and I was able to quit my job in October
about a month and a half before I was actually on TV and take
advantage of that opportunity.
So Kim, it sounds like you got an offer from the Sharks and you
took them up on their offer?
And now my dream job is that I get to invent things for a
living. I can't believe it. I am going to be filing for my
next patent very shortly, so be on the lookout.
We eagerly await its arrival at the US Patent and Trademark
Office. Molly. Did you have something you wanted to
contribute? I did I I really think you know Wynn talked about
this in her in her role and an I'll add a little bit of a piece
to something that Wynn said earlier, which is, you know, I
really think self awareness is is incredibly important,
especially when you're pivoting.
You know, having an understanding of what skills you
bring to the table and how transferable they are and what
that might look like is is hugely important, but I will add
in a piece I think that being able to take feedback, whether
it's good or bad feedback, right? You know, being able to
find that Nugget an in feedback whether it's from your
customers, whether it's from your colleagues or your peers,
or even your boss, is right.
About what you need to do and where you need to pivot and
what skills you might have that will allow you to be
successful in that pivot. I think that's huge, and so I
really think right. And then once you decide to pivot then
I think it's really important that you articulate kind of
the change that you want to make. You have your reasons
for it.
You understand the why and the what and the how of of what
you're going to pivot and Kim. What I love about your story
right is is you knew you had time to plan and then you've
planned and you knew where you were going to have it. You
lined everything up so that you can take advantage of
those opportunities, and I think that's really the key to
a successful pivot. Is is not just the self awareness, the
feedback but also the planning that goes into to pivoting.
Jennifer, you look like you have something to say. I was going to
follow up on your on your comment about being able to take
feedback and I think that that's in. You mentioned taking
feedback from your customers. I think that that's a that's an
incredibly important point, you know. Part of the feedback is
from your customers or or the market or or your investors. I
work with a lot of early stage companies startups for example,
and they are often based on a premise. They think that, for
example, this would be a great product that people are going to
want to buy this product for XY
and Z reason. And it is a terrific product, but for
whatever reason that that premise isn't true, or at least
isn't true as of that day. I I had a client, for example, who
thought that they had a box and that everybody would want a box
on their lab bench because it would be so much more
convenient. But of course the box was very expensive. What
people wanted with the service. And So what was great about that
situation was that that company understood they took in all of
the data an and they convert it from being a product company.
To services company and the great thing was that they were
prepared for that, and from an IP perspective they had a
patent that covered the product. They also had patents
that covered the method in the service and so they were able
to do a very successful pivot and continue their business.
You know, Jennifer, I think you make a really good point and
that also goes to the concept and not one that we're going to
focus on today. But creating an IP portfolio where you have
different things in your in your quiver. You have different tools
and tricks in your bag that you can bring forward when those
opportunities present themselves. Molly, you talked
about perceiving and understanding and appreciating
feedback and Zig Ziglar once said statistics suggests that
when customers complain
business. Owners and managers ought to get excited about it.
That complaining customer represents a huge opportunity
for more business and Kim and maybe this is an opportunity for
you to jump in. Having met you out. In fact, at a trade show
you shared once, how customers have really changed your
perception of your own product, customers have come to providing
uses for your product that you had never envisioned. How has
that changed how you market your product or how you?
How you present your product. It has been an amazing thing to
listen to the feedback from the customers for that very reason.
Because I never dreamed of all these other uses. For example,
clicking Carrie can now be used for as a ski boot. Oh, it could
be used for paint cans and construction panels to carry dry
cleaning to walk multiple dogs at once. And the most recent is
to use it. The clicking carry as a prop for your iPhone or iPad
and what this has done is it allowed me to expand to
different channels. So initially I was trying to sell to grocery
stores and big box retailers, but now I could sell to places
like Lowe's and Home Depot. Or I can put a logo on the clicking
carry and sell it to dry cleaning chain and they could
give it out for free with a certain number of dollars spent
on dry cleaning. So it's been really instrumental and it's
interesting because as we were talking I was thinking about
customer feedback. I had an issue where the gel padding on
the bottom of my click n carry was coming loose. Now if I
didn't get that feedback, it's not what I wanted to hear. I
wanted to hear that click n carry works perfectly and it's
always in perfect condition, but there were problems with the
glue so I was able to quickly pivot work with my factory and
making accommodation and ultimately provide a better
product and save money for the customer because I've reduced
cost of goods as well.
Outstanding and so fascinating I your comment can really leads
into our next question and that is what what best practices can
each of you share that have helped you or your clients move
forward? And what lessons did you learn in adapting? What were
your takeaways from that moment of experience or that moment of
realization and that moment that required you to take action?
I can lead off with the the best practices and it plays on the
story I just I just talked about. It's really about
planning for the opportunity.
You know entrepreneurship. Always has a pivot. There's
some pivot. That's a smart, maybe a small pivot. It maybe a
large pivot will be a series of pivots. Ann and plan for that.
You know. Plan for identify options for your business to
pivot or to expand before the need arises. You know you may
be doing again. You may be selling the device today, but
you want to provide the service tomorrow, so plan for that. You
know have your it doesn't necessarily have to be a backup
plan, it's it's really an expansion plan. If you're not
going to use it for pivot, you'll use it to to grow your
business.
And I always like to.
In talking with people about entrepreneurship, I I always
talk about starting with the end
in mind. I think too many people have this great idea.
And and that's where they wanna go. They want to chase
the idea they don't think about. What am I going to do
with that idea, you know, am I building something that's
going to be an intergenerational thing? That
I'm going to pass down to my children and my children's
children? Is it? I'm going to run this company for the rest
of my life.
Is it, uh, I'm going to run this company until I can sell it to
somebody else. Um and and then start over again and invent
something new or come up with something New I, I think
because all of those different things actually sort of come
back to what you're going to do at the beginning, and especially
in terms of intellectual property, right? It's it's
definitely going to.
Make decisions alittle bit easier for you if you
know that that's what you want to do, an you know.
With the company I I last worked for before I joined the
government, they are mergers and acquisitions, machine and I
saw it all too often. You know you would have these people
that had these great ideas. They chased the idea they built
up a company. They became attractive enough to be bought
by a much bigger company and then they honestly had no clue
what to do with themselves.
They were not prepared to be absorbed into the bigger company
as I used to joke being absorbed into the Borg and and they were
not prepared for that and they didn't, you know, understand the
pivot that they would have to do from being that successful
leader an entrepreneur, an idea maker to now being part of a
much larger company and those people did not fare well in the
new company, you know. But the people who pivoted.
And who knew all along that that was one of the things that was
probably in their future.
They they really did well and so I always tell people. Please
start with the end in mind. What is it that you want to
achieve with this? Not necessarily just the getting of
a patent, not necessarily just to get the building of a brand,
but what's your end game? Where do you wanna be? If this is
successful and then also be prepared for it not to be
successful, 'cause sometimes they aren't.
And I'm going to touch on something that Molly Beth
mentioned in it. It reminded me that getting the utility patents
was provided me with a different level of confidence. It was
really difficult because I couldn't say anything about my
product for almost three years I have two in. The first one took
a little bit longer than the 2nd, but I couldn't say anything
for about 3 years. But I did have all that time to prepare
and have the end game in mind. And it's interesting, and I
apologize that I'm.
I'm pertaining all of this to my business, but this is all I know
because I come from a different background so I could only
pertain it to click n carry. But it's interesting when I was
doing my due diligence with the Sharks, my prime way of creating
a successful company was getting into retail. But then covid
happened, so I had to. I had to pivot and I had to transfer the
majority of my sales to online, and it's something that I didn't
really prepare. Prepare for.
Because I didn't think that it was going to be lucrative, that
it was the proper channel for my product. But it turns out
that it was and I had a lot of down time to prepare for that.
So thank you for reminding me Molly Beth about the confidence
level that I had having the the utility patent. It really made
a difference. Huge difference in my world.
Molly, one thing you mentioned, I think is is a great thing for
us to discuss as a panel.
And I think it's something we probably all have an opinion or
a story to share on is the role of failure in creating success.
You know? Mary Kay, who we know, created an empire in the beauty
industry. Said when you reach an obstacle, turn it into an
opportunity. You have the choice you can overcome and be a
winner. Or you can allow it to overcome you and be a loser. The
choice is yours and yours alone refused to throw in the towel.
Go that extra mile that failures refused to travel. Far better to
be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure.
What do you all see as the role of failure in being a successful
entrepreneur in helping entrepreneurs to be successful?
I'll just go first and say it's absolutely essential.
You don't know what you can achieve until you've already
failed not to achieve it.
I.
No, I mean, I think it is is as long as you approach it with
that right mindset of of growth an you know how am I going to
grow from this? What can I take away from this experience that's
going to help me or my team in the future, so I think it's
essential I my favorite is always the Thomas Edison quote,
right? You know he didn't. He tried 99 times to invent the
light bulb and someone asked him well, what was it like to fail?
He goes. I didn't fail like I I did things 99 times to make sure
that I got the right one.
And so I think that's an example of that growth mindset. That is
is so common among amongst
entrepreneurs. Um but Kim. I mean, you should probably speak
to that. And Jennifer, I want to hear from you on that too.
So to your, you're absolutely right and what I find is through
failure. You become a little more thick skinned number one
and you realize that no is just know for now. So you certainly
do learn from your failures. And it's interesting. I love your
quotes, Elizabeth because it's true there there. There are no
failures because you're you're through the process perfecting
your item or your product or
your service. And it it becomes more beneficial for the end user
and you know it's it's funny because I don't know if I should
be proud or embarrassed about this. But with Shark Tank I
applied seven or eight times before I finally made it, and
it's one of those things where if I had just given up, then I
would never have made it to TV and received all that publicity
that I couldn't afford. So it was it was a blessing in
disguise. But if I had just rolled over and I didn't take
that last swing at the bat.
It would have happened. So learn from your failures and I was
able to take that information each year and improve my pitch
an improve my sales and I made myself more attractive to them
so they finally picked me and Luckily a couple of Sharks
picked me as well. So thank you.
And I'll, I'll add that I am. I am a big fan of embracing
failure. You have to reach far and you'll fail and embrace it
and share it with others. Will share their failures with you
and you'll all learn. It's, you know, I think it's critical. I
was I went to. I was familiar with the company whose whose
slogan was failure is not an option, and it was a start up.
It was running. It was a research company and an
everybody. The lab got very timid about things and anet.
It became this kind of joke about it. You know, if you
didn't fail it would be called search, not research, know so it
was. It was just interesting study but but I have to say that
I embrace failure. Part of entrepreneurship is apart of
innovation is. Apart of Inventorship, you know and enjoy
it and just you never. I guess I had the quote I have is that you
don't fail until you quit trying. So just keep going.
Indeed, in thank you, Jennifer, Jennifer in talking about
failure, you mentioned sharing your failure with others and
they'll share their failures with you and you can both learn
from the experience.
That's a great lead in for our next question, and that's what
resources do you want to highlight that have been useful
to you or your clients or individuals you've worked with
in entrepreneurship for their success. And I know Wynn touched
on resources in her Fireside chat, and I think some of those
that she referenced were incredibly valuable, but each of
you, what would you see as resources that you would
recommend others to seek out or to investigate as to
Possible help in their particular endeavour.
I can start with. With that I I of course want to point people
to the USPTO website. It's fantastic. The resources that
are available there. It's really tremendous. But in particular,
there's the innovation expansion hub on the website, which is a
terrific source of resources. It provides. For example,
demystifying the patent system toolkit, mentoring programs,
communities of innovators together, as well as links to
other you know small.
Business Association all of these other resources that are
available. It's all you know, curated and right there on the
on the patent. Yes, PTO website, so I really recommend
tapping into the to the tremendous resources that are
available there.
Absolutely, and I'll add on to Jennifer, I think.
You know part of expanding American innovation isn't just
looking at it from a demographic perspective, it is that
geographic and then also that economic perspective. So from a
geographic perspective, reach out to your regional offices to
the USPTO. You know as part of the federal government we work
so closely with our sister agencies. You know whether it's
the Export Assistance Council or you know our SPDCs in the
region every single regional
office. And I I know Liz had a chance to ride the bus as well.
Does the SBIR STTR program, you know where all of these other
federal agencies will talk about grants and money that might be
available. We participate in it from an intellectual property
perspective, so that's that geographic expansion definitely
reach out to your USPTO, regional offices, and, worst
case scenario. We can make introductions to, you know, some
of the people that you need to
know. On the other federal government side, your state
economic development. Any of the World Trade Centers,
please reach out to them. They have a wealth of resources and
mentors that can help you. But I will also say I love the
USPTO's law School clinics and our Pro bono program.
Or pro Bono program is in all 50 States and we have law school
clinics across the nation's I love the law school clinic for a
lot of reasons. But number one, it gets lost students
experiences working directly with clients which helps them
get jobs. So I think that's a win win and plus it allows the
clients of the clinic to receive free help. And then our pro bono
programs around the nation are unbelievably fantastic in
getting under resourced
inventors. The help that they need to get through the patent
process, you know?
It's not necessarily intuitive even Wynn said that, I always
say, you know, on the failure side as well. I always tell
people, right the first thing you'll probably receive from
the US Patent Trademark Office is a rejection. It's not a
rejection of you personally, it's just an invitation to a
conversation about why your invention is unique. But the
pro bono process I really think does amazing work across the
nation to help under resourced inventors.
And then I would also add our Patent and Trademark resource
centers. So those are librarians that are in all 50
states. I think at this point and they are there to help with
searching and understanding that market as we talked about
earlier. You know, understanding where your
competition is an then also understanding what the
landscape looks for from and looks like from an intellectual
property perspective.
And for me I'm going to start with the USPTO also because I
it's been an amazing resource for me because it just doesn't
stop with the pattern for a business. It also requires a
trademark and also questions into working with other
countries. USPTO has been an amazing resource and I I could
not have come this far without them number one and then another
thing that was suggested was working with lawyers.
And even last students. And actually I hired a law
student to help me with my patent search to make sure
that I could save money and and work with the USPTO to
make sure that my my patent was approved and another
another group that I utilized also from the federal
government is the SBA and score. It's amazing how much
help I received from mentors through both of those.
Groups, it's phenomenal. There's so many amazing
resources out there from the United States government, and
I honestly couldn't have come this far without them.
All the way back to financials planning manufacturing. Just
just amazing resources are available to us and then even
working with local colleges for example, I am I worked with a
local college. I worked with a product design student because
her school had access to a 3D CAD printer and if I had paid
for a 3D CAD printer out in the real world, it would have been
very very expensive. Instead I was able to make iterations for
about $200 apiece.
I went through nine of them, so just like just like we were
discussing before 99 times until you come upon the winner. So I
finally after 1800 dollars I came upon the winner. But if I
had done that in the real world it would have been $2000 in
iteration versus $200 in iteration. So there there are so
many resources out there available to you and it's
interesting because Wynn touched on it before, don't be afraid to
ask for help because I have been helped so often on along the way
and. I'm available to help any person who's interested in
patenting a product or designing a product. Because so many people
helped me. It's an obligation for me to give back. Plus, I I
feel really good about helping others because I received so
much amazing help along the way. And then Lastly, there's a group
that I'm in called WBENC and I'm considered a minority owned
business. As a woman an it's amazing because so many big
companies feel an obligation or have a need to work with
minority owned businesses.
And it's it really opens the door for me. For example,
Walmart, Target, Kroger, all of these companies want to
work with minority owned businesses and give them a
head start. So it's a real foot in the door. So I advise
everyone to go after those sort of accreditations in
addition to the patents and trademarks.
Ladies, this question alone is is a kernel of gold for our
attendees to take away, and I'm so thankful that each of you hit
on such valuable resources and some of those resources are
really unsung heroes. Molly or pro bono program or law school
clinical program? The PTRC program. We can't promote those
programs enough that those are resources that are available to
people, and so many of these resources and resources of the
SBA and score as well.
Often times these resources are for free. Our favorite 4 letter
word, right. So we want people to take advantage of these
opportunities, and Kim, your voice of the insider tips and
tricks that prototyping with a local college. I think that's an
excellent one, and thank you for sharing that. We do have some
additional prepared questions, but I also see we have some
questions from our audience, so I want to be sure in and get to
some of those if we can. And I think this next one is a.
Is a really telling one.
Our our questioner asks I can only imagine the stress
associated with chasing your dream and inventing such a cool
product, so this is obviously directed at Kim, but Jennifer
and Molly. I think you can answer it as well.
How do you handle the anxiety and so it's really a question
about how do you handle the anxiety of of making a pivot of
following a dream of perhaps stepping away from you know what
you've always known in done to do something different, whether
it's going from a law firm to corporate practice, whether it's
starting your own legal Association, whether it's
starting your own small business, how do you handle the
anxiety? What are something we can do to help?
So I would say that the most important thing is to have
belief in yourself and failure is inevitable. It's going to
happen, but try to plan. Try to save money or do whatever you
need to do so that you can relieve some of that anxiety.
But the bottom line is you you you can't give up if the if this
is your dream, you have to go after it. For example, it was
really difficult for me to to leave my my job in October, but
this is the chance of a lifetime and I have to strike while the
iron is hot. I I have enough confidence in my product and in
my strategy and all of the preparation that I've done that
of course there's anxiety, but I have no choice that there's no
turning back now I'm just I'm just moving forward and the
worst that's going to happen is that the company fails. And
guess what? I could get a job all over again. Yes, I'll have
to start back from scratch, but that's the worst that could
happen, so why not go for it? Just give it your all.
So I won't talk about any of my inappropriate coping mechanisms
that involve, shall we say,
grapes? Um, in a fermented, you know, in a bottle.
But I I will say.
I I have leaned on my network, I have leaned on my mentors. I
cannot thank any of them enough for all of those people who have
talked me off the ledge and who you know believed in me when I
quite frankly maybe didn't believe it myself. So I think
your mentors, your support network, the the, the people who
will be there for you. Yeah, they definitely help with
anxiety and. I know I always refer to one of my favorite
inventors, Beulah Louise Henry, who invented the vacuum sealed
ice cream freezer. Because, you know, she allows us to have the
relationship with Ben and Jerry's that that some of us
have. So I I really think greatly. Maybe don't adopt by
inappropriate coping mechanisms, but definitely rely on your
support network and your mentors in in your personal board of
directors or your team that Cheers you on.
Boy, this is truly women's History Month. If we can weave
Lady Edison into a conversation. Nicely done, Molly.
Jennifer, do you wanna add to the conversation? Sure, I do a
little bit of both from Kim and from Molly Beth too. You know,
it's it is one of those things where there's a lot of anxiety,
but but I look at others, have done it and I said I say others
have done it. And if it doesn't work, I'll do something else.
But I, as I have to surround, surround myself with people who
have faith in me and and oftentimes almost always they
have far more faith in me than I
have in myself. And and that helps you know my husband has
been a terrific support through through all of this. I also hit
the treadmill, maybe a little too often. I meditate maybe a
little too long when things get tough, but but it's anxiety is
part of the fun of it. You know, if your life is it completely
anxiety free, you know it actually might be a little
boring. So embrace it.
I love that I love that and I think we can all take a take
away from each and everyone of you that that there's no one way
to deal with the stress and anxiety. And maybe it might take
more than one way.
We have kind of a very specific patent question that I'm going
to pose recognizing that we can't provide legal advice, but
I'm going to call on Jennifer and Molly. Although Kim, please
feel free to jump in as well. We haven't. Uh, attendee today who
has filed a provisional patent application and is in the
process of manufacturing their product. But there also filing
for the non provisional. Will the Provisional patent
application. Protect me
sufficiently. Maybe to just touch on what a provisional
patent application is Very quickly and how that May or
may not help in your process of of entrepreneurship,
manufacturing and commercializing.
Jennifer, do you wanna start? Or sure, Sir, absolutely a
provisional application. Sometimes people refer to it as
a placeholder. So it is an application that describes your
invention that you put on file and then you have one years time
to work on your invention to create more data to to develop
it, to learn more about it, to expound upon it and and then you
have to either file a utility patent which is a patent that
then gets examined or patent application. I'm sorry that that
then actually gets examined.
And if you make it through the examination process, that's what
will issue be allowed and be issued. And then you have your
your your actual patent and is that patent that that is
actionable. That's the patent that will protect you. There is
some protection of potentially provided from the date you file
your utility application so it doesn't go all the way back to
your provisional application. But if you file your utility
application conversion after after the one year period of the
placeholder Anuar and what you claim in there, what you
describe as your invention and claim at the very end is.
Yes. Essentially the same as the claims that are
ultimately issued. You might have some protection from
there, but it does not go back to your provisional
patent filing what it protects you from is others
who come along in the intervening year and file an
application that claims something is very similar to
your invention, so that's what it does protect you
out. You have a placeholder, you have a date and time in
with you invented first.
Woo Hoo.
Molly, did you want to add
anything? Absolutely not. Jennifer did a great job. Very
good, thank you.
So I see our time is it is drawing to a close but I have
one question and then I want to give each of you the opportunity
to provide a Pearl of wisdom to share with our audiences. There
take away. But maybe if we could hit one last question relatively
quickly to address the elephant in the room and that is the
pandemic and its significant impact on all of us. How is the
current climate of the digital environment the pandemic
affected How You work how you work with your clients.
And are there some takeaways for how that could help or
hurt your business or the business of those you work
with in the future? Are there some positives, or is it
solely negative so that we have to take away from this
dramatic experience that we've gone through together?
I'll start a little bit, you know the the focus for the
agency really shifted last March and I really I'm so proud of
this agency for how seamlessly we transitioned. I think all of
the investments that we made over the years in Tele work. All
of the other things that we have done to promote inclusion And
and you know, engagement with the agency have paid off in
spades. But I mean, I love the fact that right on average
there's over 13,000 VPN connections to headquarters
every single day.
There's an average of 6000 participants that hold 1200
virtual meetings using our agency secure teleconferencing
tools. We have over 9000 patent examiners and trademark
examining attorney's working virtually and we didn't miss a
beat in in. In our examination it's it's nothing short of
phenomenal. For me personally right, everything changed to on
line. I've had to make some some personal changes, you know, just
in terms of not traveling anymore. My suitcase really is
very upset at me and I missed a lot of the in person
connections. That we've been able to make, but we've been
able to seamlessly transition to the virtual environment, and I
think we've been able to get some very rich conversations
occurring in the virtual environment as we've adapted. So
while I'm looking forward to going back and being able to
visit people, for example, I really miss Kansas City
Barbeque. I have to tell you I haven't been to Kansas City in
like a year and a half and I really miss their barbecue and
I missed the people everywhere in my region. So I am looking
forward to getting back, but we have adapted really well to
this, but Jennifer, I'd be interested in hearing your
insights as well.
I I couldn't agree more. I've been incredibly impressed with
the way that that the Patent Office managed adapted to
continued on during the pandemic an from. From my own
perspective, you know my timing as far as Lawton launching title
was was it coincided with the pandemic and the shut down an
and it it was actually fairly good timing as far as the the
development of the.
Digital, the video conferencing. All of those resources for
working from home and I think it's it's really actually quite
good and hopefully will be. Will be good to to businesses in and
Others in the the legal Facility legal services field. Because,
you know, law firms have a lot of lawyers downtown and big
fancy offices that have really high rent. And he know who pays
for that. The clients do, and now we've learned that attorneys
can work from home and interact with their clients on video chat
and and, you know, have face to FaceTime. An really do you
productive and good legal work without the high rent. So
hopefully this will actually be a benefit to.
Companies and clients everywhere. But I I my heart of
course goes out to everyone who wasn't as fortunate in the
pandemic. And that's really the most important point. I want to
make. But but as far as the development of this
infrastructure for for video conferencing, an for digital
interactions has really been, I think quite good and will be
will be a beneficial to the legal services field.
Great points Jennifer and I have to say that.
Again, not everyone has been so lucky, but the pandemic is
actually been a positive for me. For example, trade shows are
very important when you're trying to promote a product, and
I could do them virtually now, so that has been phenomenal. It
saves me a lot of money as a small business and their their
services. For example, there's easy. Ahriman rangeme.com that
I'm in able to promote my product to specific buyers all
through the computer, so it makes life easy. Plus I could do
it. From home, in my pajamas and it's it's easy to do
research on places like LinkedIn where I could find
buyers there as well. So it's made me become more creative
and it's actually saved me a lot of time because I don't
have to pack and go to a trade show and spend all that money.
And I also don't have to sit in a long commute. I live in
Los Angeles, so that's my favorite thing about the
pandemic is now being in rush hour traffic all the time.
Ladies, thank you. We've all. We've certainly all learned
ingrown And There are some positive takeaways as each of
you have shared. Kim touched on it earlier and that's the value
and importance of paying it
forward. And very honestly, that is what each one of you
is doing today. By participating in this panel.
And I can't thank you enough for your time and expertise.
Share today. With that, I'd like to give each of you the
moment for one last word. One last kernel of expertise and
advice that you might like to leave our audience with. What
does that take away that you would offer to our audience
today?
I'll go first. Ask for help.
Don't don't be afraid to ask for
help. Um And and don't be afraid to come to people that
you might not think would help you, but but ask for help. The
people who are most successful, especially in pivots, ask for
help and I think that's the most important takeaway.
I would say don't allow your dreams to be dashed. You know
when you're you're talking about this new idea you have for this
new invention or this new service, there are going to be a
lot of naysayers out there. Don't listen to them. Believe in
yourself, have confidence and just go for it. I said it before
now is just know for now. It really is no for now. And I
agree with you, it's necessary to ask for help and people are
so willing to help. You'll be amazed if you don't ask. You
don't receive, so be sure to ask for help along the way.
And I'll just say take a leap of faith. Go for it. You got this.
Thank you ladies. Thank you Jennifer Kim. Molly leave you
with a word of wisdom. Dave Thomas our famous founder of
Wendy's. Once said, what do you need to start a business? 3
simple things. Know your product better than anyone. Know your
customer and have a burning desire to succeed. As our three
panelists have shown today.
They each have a burning desire to succeed in have each
in their own individual, right And they've shared that
formula for success with you today. My thanks to them. My
thanks to Sean and all of those in the Office of
Innovation Outreach an the communications team of the US
Patent and Trademark Office. It was a pleasure to be part
of this year's Women's Entrepreneurship Symposium. We
wish you all the best of success in your continued
innovation journey.
Thank you Elizabeth. Thank you, Kimberly, Jennifer and
Molly. Your panel was exciting, innovative and
informative and we appreciate you providing all those
resources for everyone watching today.