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HOW TO FIRE YOUR LAWYER

I'm taking a little risk with this month’s topic, considering that each and every one of my clients reads this newsletter, along with hundreds of firearms industry company owners and leaders.  But I'm willing to risk telling my clients just how, why, and when to change attorneys so that everyone can learn the benefits and the process of transitioning to the right attorney for you. A relationship with your lawyer is a little like a marriage.  When it’s great, everyone’s happy.  When there are rough spots, the smart folks work hard to make things work (for  [...]

By Ben Langlotz | September 7, 2023 | Business, Firearms Industry Advice, Intellectual Property Advice, Opinion Pieces | 0 Comments Read More »

HOW ONE GUN WITH A LOUSY TRIGGER EARNED ME A SMALL FORTUNE

  This story is getting long in the tooth (look at that patent date) but everyone seems to love it.  I like being able to say that I’m a firearms inventor, and am one of y’all.  I file a couple of patents each year on my own inventions, have a mediocre track record in getting them granted, and this one is the only one that has made me money.  Yet. How the Story of my Small Firearms Business Venture Provides Valuable Lessons to Any Firearms Business. I’m proud to reveal that I’m not just one of those guys who serves the firearms industry, because I  [...]

By Ben Langlotz | August 4, 2023 | Firearms | 0 Comments Read More »

HOW TO SEARCH PATENTS FOR GUNS AND FIREARMS TECHNOLOGY

There are a lot of good reasons why my firearms industry clients and other clients want to do a patent search. Sometimes, they’ll hire me to the do the job, but I’d like to offer a reliable resource for doing it yourself. Some patent searches are too formal for do-it-yourself internet work, even by me. In extreme cases, finding the “smoking gun” patent that wins a lawsuit can be worth tens of thousands of dollars invested in a search specialist (someone I would outsource the project to). In some cases, investing a couple thousand dollars in a formal patentability  [...]

By Ben Langlotz | July 6, 2023 | Books & Resources, Business, Firearms, Firearms Industry Advice, How To, Patent | 0 Comments Read More »

HOW TO PROTECT “COOL”…

 TWO FAMILIAR WAYS TO PROTECT PRODUCT DESIGNS, PLUS A THIRD WAY YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF AND CAN UNDOUBTEDLY AFFORD. Everyone wants a patent. It’s perfectly logical to want to protect a new product.  Technical innovations help set you apart in a crowded marketplace and a patent prevents anyone else from offering your innovation for 20 years. But let’s be honest, not every new product has patentable technical innovations.  Sometimes, what makes a successful product isn’t how it works or what it does, but how it looks.  Style sells, and something that looks  [...]

By Ben Langlotz | June 12, 2023 | Books & Resources, Business, Copyright, Firearms, Firearms Industry Advice, How To, Intellectual Property Advice, Legal News, Marketing, Patent, Trademark | 0 Comments Read More »

DON’T MESS WITH TESLA?

How My Crazy Trademark Strategy Revealed Tesla’s Woke Lawyers. I believe in covering your bases, and leaving yourself a backup.  When filing a trademark application for my own business I’ve been known to file two in advance, and let the trademark examiners make my final choice.  That’s how I ended up with “Hybrid” as the brand that conveys my patent-pending InchMetric® hex wrench set with the combined and intermingled metric and fractional element – for when you don’t know or care which format that fastener is – you just want the right size tool without  [...]

By Ben Langlotz | May 5, 2023 | Business, Intellectual Property Advice, Trademark | 0 Comments Read More »

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, and then illustrated a memorable lesson that’s probably important for most of our readers. It started when I was reading one of the industry’s email news services.  This service starts off with  [...]

By Ben Langlotz | April 12, 2023 | Business, Firearms, Firearms Industry Advice, Intellectual Property Advice, Marketing, Trademark | 0 Comments Read More »