Firearms Industry Advice

THE APRIL FOOLS’ STUNT I DIDN’T DARE PULL


This one goes back more than a few years, but it’s being resurrected because the issues are timeless, and it’s a little amusing looking back when I was just a bit feistier, at least in print.  Email me if you have a good guess as to what year it first appeared. It was so tempting, but I didn’t dare poke the giant beast, even though I could have gotten away with it,  [...]

ChatGPT WROTE THIS


Will Artificial Intelligence Replace Me? You Decide… This month, I’m inviting a guest writer to try to do my job. I know lots of law firms have newsletters they outsource to writers who generate the gibberish no one reads. As you can probably tell, I personally write every word of this. Until now. I decided to ask ChatGPT a few questions, and let it do the writing.  [...]

SPEAK SOFTLY, BUT CARRY A BIG PATENT


How a patent shut down a competitor in only 24 hours. Nothing more forcefully drives home a lesson you’ve been teaching for years than when what you’ve been telling others for years happens to you. I’ve been reminding everyone for years that having a patent can provide real competitive benefits, even if you never have to spend a fortune litigating it. I liken it to  [...]

HOW A “CAVEMAN” PATENT CAN AFFORDABLY SECURE YOUR INVENTION


It's been 10 years since I wrote this.  Back then, the biggest change in patent law in my lifetime took effect.  And it changed everything. The big change was that patent rights for an invention go to the first to file a patent application, not the first to invent (who has documents showing he invented it first).  This means that if you show a new product at SHOT, anyone  [...]

HOW TO GET TOP DOLLAR FOR YOUR COMPANY IN FIVE YEARS


Sometimes, I know when clients have been reading this newsletter.  Sometimes, I’m blown away to see something I wrote about years ago drive a client’s strategy. I just took a call from a client who told me they were getting ready to sell their company, and could we see about resurrecting some old trademark registrations they had earlier decided to let drop to save the  [...]

HOW “KEEP-ALIVE” PATENT STRATEGY KEEPS THE “INFRINGEMENT WEASELS” AWAY


Mustela frenata AKA the Common Weasel. AKA the lawyer for the guy who’s infringing your patent. Imagine being a general going into battle, and all the unanticipated intelligence about your enemy is gained as the battle is engaged.  Now imagine having a magic “pause” button that halts the battle, and enables you to resupply, re-arm, and redeploy your troops in the  [...]