[00:00:02] Speaker A: Ramping up your business. The time is near. You've given it hard, now get it in gear. It's Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart. I'm Richard Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks and copyrights.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, not an attorney, but I do marketing for Gearhart Law and I have my own startups and podcasts.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Welcome to Passage to Profit, the road to Entrepreneurship, where we talk with celebrities and entrepreneurs about their stories and their business ventures. So now it is time for Intellectual property news, where we're going to be talking about deep fakes. And this time in intellectual property news, we were reviewing, Elizabeth and I, a study by the Library of Congress. They run the copyright office and they were analyzing the impact of deepfakes and the legality of managing those. You know what a deepfake is, right?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: I know what a deep fake is. It's when somebody takes you, for instance, your likeness and makes you say something really stupid and it sounds just like you and people think it's you, but it's not you. It's a deep fake.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Well, how do we distinguish between the people who really are saying stupid things and the deep fakes? I don't know. I don't know if they have a law for that yet or not. Anyway, the Library of Congress came back and submitted a report to Congress saying that the current copyright laws are completely and totally inadequate to deal with this situation. So what else is new? In the legal world? Things happen slowly and certainly not as quickly as the technology. I really hope that Congress does something to address this because there's a lot of mischief that we could get into with deepfakes. But I'd really like to hear from our panel today. Have you had any experience with deepfakes? Any thoughts about what we should do with them? So, Sonia, do you have any opinions on these deepfakes?
[00:02:03] Speaker C: I have had anybody actually take my likeness, but I have been hacked a number of times, which, you know, is equally as frustrating and annoying. And I do have some celebrity friend who did have a deep fake of her. And it was tough. First she didn't even know it and then it was. People were starting to say, hey, I don't. This doesn't quite seem like you. It was just off enough and then it was, what do you do with it? Where did it come from? And how do you control it? Because once it happens once, then, you know, it's tough. So it became a bit of a legal battle for her. So I do think it's a serious, serious problem.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Sonia could be a target because she was a soap opera star, Unguiding Light and One Life to Live and is recently been in a Netflix show. Are you, is that still on Netflix?
[00:02:51] Speaker C: Yeah, it is still on, yes.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: What was the name of that again?
[00:02:53] Speaker C: Cowboy Wars. Yeah, yeah, so.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: So she's out there with her image and her audio from a long time ago. Even so people could steal yours.
[00:03:02] Speaker C: They absolutely can.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: And trying to get justice is really hard. Peter, what are your thoughts?
[00:03:08] Speaker D: I think it's going to be a problem that becomes far more pervasive. In fact, I'm actually working with a content generator right now and I only have to send him a picture of me not even smiling. And he's able to generate, with AI, a fully interactive video with me smiling, showing other facial gestures. He can show me speaking in my voice in Japanese, Spanish, English. It's actually scary, incredibly disconcerting. Now it's a way for me to generate content at a very, very low cost and it's authentic. However, the converse when somebody's doing it for illegal means and ill gotten gains, this is scary because it's only gonna get easier.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: I guess the moral of the story is keep your eyes open and lobby your congresspeople for strong laws against deepfakes.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: And if somebody you think, you know, says something really inappropriate that's unlike them, it could be a deep fake or.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: It could just, they could have indigestion, you know.
[00:04:05] Speaker C: So, yeah, definitely keep an eye out for people on your list.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: As a second special treat for the intellectual property news, we have a very interesting story from Naga. Her parent company owned a trademark that could have been very valuable. Naga, why don't you tell us a little bit more about that?
[00:04:22] Speaker E: Yeah, so when I traveled here in 2006, that's when I started. So the company name that was formulated is Siri Info. And I am part of a company called Siri. How many of you know what Siri is?
[00:04:35] Speaker A: You mean like the voice activated Siri?
[00:04:38] Speaker E: Yes, but I'm not part of that group because we did not trademark. So my parent company is Siri Info. So Siri, we call that Siri all the time. All the legal documentation is all Siri. But we did not do trademarking and now we do have an apple right now I call hey Siri, call me so and so person. And we always discuss on the boardroom saying that, hey, why didn't we do it?
[00:05:06] Speaker A: Well, I have to follow up with that. A very personal story. My dad, who is no longer with us, used to work with Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's. And he asked my dad to go into business with him, and my dad said no. And so every time he saw a McDonald's commercial on television, he would just sort of wince a little bit thinking about what could have been. But at the time, it seemed like a risky thing. And so he just decided to keep his job and did take that risk.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: Well, I want to go back to the trademark, if we can. If you had trademarked Siri, would you have done it worldwide or would you have just done it in a few countries?
[00:05:46] Speaker E: We would have done definitely in the places that we are operating. So there are like eight countries that we are operational, so in Canada, US and few others. So. But worldwide would be best. But we'll start off with the places that we are operational.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: Right, right. So have you trademarked the name of your company now?
[00:06:04] Speaker E: No. That is something that I have to figure out, actually.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: You might want to have a discussion about that because it seems like you wouldn't want that to happen a second time. Right. So that's too bad. We were kind of talking about that before the program. Elizabeth and I were wondering, well, if it's Apple, they have a lot of clout anyway, so. But you probably would have, you know, received a nice compensation for that. Right. If you decided to sell, that is compensation.
[00:06:32] Speaker E: But at the same time, we do not want our name to be used by something else. And then people will think like, hey, oh yeah, do I have to type Siri? So they will look for different options. They'll ask us a question saying that, hey, how do we reach you? But if it is already trademarked, they know where to reach and how to do and everything. So it's a funny story, but at the same time, for any entrepreneur who is starting with right now, AI, everyone is. You said, like two in every five Americans. But I would say, like, everyone is thinking and waiting for an opportunity to start their journey. And if you are starting a journey, just think about how to do that, like protect your intellectual property. And if you are bringing up a product, how do you trademark it?
[00:07:16] Speaker B: If you're an entrepreneur and you think you want to name something this, and then you don't ever do anything with it, you don't sell anything or you don't use it anywhere, then you can lose it.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: You have to use it or lose it in the trademark world.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: And how many countries would you tell people to get a trademark in?
[00:07:31] Speaker A: It's a strategic decision it depends on where you're doing business. So I don't believe in trademarking in places where you're never really going to need the trademark, but where you have active business activities. If you want to protect company headquarters area, maybe your headquarters are in the uk, but you're also doing business in Germany. I mean, would you want a competitor to use your name in Germany? That's a question that you have to answer and then based on that you can decide.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: So would you trademark the name and.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: A logo or it depends on your budget. I would say if you can afford. I mean, trademarks are relatively inexpensive intellectual property, you're looking at probably maybe 25, $2,700 per country. So if that's not an issue if you're a larger company, then protect everything. If you're an entrepreneur just starting out, you just really want to focus on the name and then you can file more trademarks later.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Is there a place where people can go to find out more about trademarks?
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Which is funny you should ask. You can go to learnmoreaboutrademarks.com and you can download a free trademark booklet that will tell you a lot about trademarks. Or you can go there and book a consultation with me or one of the attorneys at Trademark Earhart Law and we can help you with your trademarks or your patents or your copyrights. So it's an excellent educational resource and it's important for your business that you protect your name, because if you don't protect it, somebody else could start using it and create a lot of confusion. Passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated radio show appearing in 38 markets across the United States. In addition, Passage to Profit has also been recently selected by Feedspot Podcasters Database as a top 10 entrepreneur interview podcast. Thank you to the P2P team, our producer, Noah Fleishman, and our program coordinator, Alicia Morrissey, and our studio assistant, Risa Kat Bussari. Look for our podcast tomorrow anywhere you get your podcasts. Our podcast is ranked in the top 3% globally. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram X and on our YouTube channel. And remember, while the information on this program is believed to be correct, never take a legal step without checking with your legal professional first. Gearhart Law is here for your patent, trademark and copyright needs. You can find
[email protected] and contact us for a free consultation. Take care everybody. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week.
