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Protecting Your Intellectual Property & Finishing Your Book (with Steve Sponseller) · The Daily Writer

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: As a writer and a creator, one of the most important steps you can take legally is protecting your intellectual property.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: On today's episode, I have a guest who helps us understand this complex area so we can better protect ourselves.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, thanks so much for joining me on this episode of the Smart Business Writing Podcast.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Kent Sanders, and I'm a ghostwriter and professor of communications.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is the show that helps you write amazing content so you can save time, stand out from the competition, and get more leads that turn into customers or clients.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I am thrilled that my friend Steve Sponseller is here with us on this episode.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Steve is an intellectual property attorney and innovation strategist who has helped more than 1,000 innovators and business leaders develop and protect innovative ideas.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Steve enjoys writing about intellectual property topics, and his articles have been featured in Entrepreneur, The Huffington Post, and other publications.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Steve also just released his first book called Cracking the Patent Code.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: In our conversation, Steve touches on a variety of topics, including a summary of his new book, the four types of intellectual property protection, and when to use each one, and also some insights on why and how he was able to finish his book.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: And if you have ever started a book project but you've struggled to get it done, Steve has some great advice for you along the way.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: All right, without further ado, let's get right to the conversation.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Steve, it is great to have you on the podcast.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: We have been friends for a while, but this is the first time you've been on the show, and I appreciate you making time to do this.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's great to have you.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, to be here.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh thanks for inviting me.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Looking forward to sharing some time with you.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I remember whenever we chatted it, gosh, it must have been about a year ago.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, nobody nobody knows um our our frames of reference in regards to time have been thrown way off track by the year 2020.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, what year is that?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember when we when we first chatted, it must have been a year ago or so.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um when you were telling me about what you did as an attorney, especially with the patents, I was really, really fascinated by that.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm excited that you're able to come on the show today and talk a little bit about your book and your writing process and help us to get into to the mind of Steve, which had which is a very intricate place that is dealing with a lot of complicated things.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: So this will be fun.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, I'm looking forward to it and especially happy to share my experience with finally getting my first book done that that only took about a decade.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: So but hey, we got to start somewhere.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: So let's dive into that.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Your book is called Cracking the Patent Code, which is a great title, by the way.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, give us a summary of what the book is about.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's so I've been working with tech companies for more than 20 years, primarily helping them protect their important inventions.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, tech companies come up with a lot of inventions, and that's what keeps them going is to be able to protect them and kind of carve out that space in the marketplace.
• 3:02
  unknown: Yeah.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I've did there are all kinds of systems about how to do this.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And some people have these really, I mean, they're thick textbooks that explain how to identify your inventions and how to protect them.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't want to put out a book that was probably wasn't going to be read, or people would read the first couple chapters and then set it aside.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I wrote something shorter and I focused it down to the three critical steps that uh tech companies or or anybody else who's inventing things need to follow to first be sure they identify all their inventions, then a simplified system to evaluate them so that you figure out which are the highest priority or the most value to the company, and then you protect them as a third step with a typically a patent application.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: But just stilling it down using my experience and getting it down to these three things in the hopes that people read the book and actually see that they can do this.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't, it's not a 48-step system that is going to take two years to implement.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that was the whole idea behind it.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is probably kind of a dumb question, but when I think of tech companies, I think of people who are generally on the ball with with everything they're that they're doing.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I'm sure that's not the case, but is it do you ever come across uh companies in the tech space who have not identified what their highest performing products are?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Or or I guess in other words, they're pouring resources into things that are not actually working.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And they had they do have products that are really profitable for them, but they're not maximizing those.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is that something that commonly happens?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: It it happens sometimes.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of that I I kind of leave the leaders are pretty good at that at many companies.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe the ones that that crash and burn, not so good.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: But the the one thing that I think that they don't see is they have these products that are successful, but they maybe fail to realize the the internal technology or their some of the inventions that they created.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm an engineer as well as an intellectual property attorney.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so so a lot of engineers, I know when they get done with a product or project, they in hindsight, it looks like, well, that was pretty simple.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: There aren't any inventions there, that was easy.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: But so part of me is saying, okay, what are your successful products?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Are there inventions in there?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let's think back through the process.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Where did you get stuck?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and part of it is they sometimes they just don't see the the really cool inventions they came up with because they got it all done.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like it was a simple process.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's fascinating.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's really fascinating.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now I want I know one thing that you that you talk about is four types of intellectual property protection.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, can you talk about each of those and when we should use each of those?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's four main categories of intellectual property protection.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they're it's copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So copyrights are the easiest right to acquire the protection because it covers things that you create, whether you write a book or an article, create a video, PowerPoint slides, anything that you create, you're automatically the copyright owner as soon as you finish creating it.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can put the copyright logo on the document or on the image, but you're the copyright owner whether you do that or not.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of the quick and easy.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's where your creative works or the creative works that your team creates.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, kind of moving up to a slightly different type of protection is well, and let me back up.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh copyrights allow you to stop other people from making a copy of your document.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: They can't copy your book, your music, your video, whatever, uh, without your permission.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, trademarks are protecting something that's identifying you or your brand.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the Coca-Cola logo, it's it's the name Nike, things like that.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: When people see this trademark, whether it's a design or a word, they're like, oh, okay, that's you know, XYZ company.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I see this swoosh on a piece of athletic clothing or shoes.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Nike made that.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's identifying your brand.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it it doesn't so for Nike, they can't stop other people from making shoes, but they can stop people from using their brand name, Nike, and and the swoosh logo on other people's products because it could confuse the consumer as to where it comes from.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: I can imagine they've sued companies before.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: I can just imagine that.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: They they have a team that does that.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they have a whole department for that.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: But you have if you have a trademark, I don't want to get too deep in the details, but if you have a trademark, you have to actively they call it police it.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be out there watching for people infringing it, and you have to take action and tell them to stop.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you potentially could lose your trademark.
• 7:50
  unknown: Yeah.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the trademark is going to identify either you or your brand or your product with a unique unique name, unique logo, things like that.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: So the patent protection is for inventions.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was talking about earlier, it's a lot of technology companies use these because they create new computer systems, new autonomous vehicles, whatever it is they're working on.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what the invention or the patent lets you do, you file a patent application, it goes through an examination process in the US patent and trademark office.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you get a patent issued, that lets you exclude other people and other companies from making, using, or selling any product that contains your invention.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's a section in a patent that's the kind of legal definition.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: I won't go into those details here, but the the patent is specifically for inventions and typically things that you're incorporating into a product or a service.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um the last category is trade secrets.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they're kind of, I guess they're like the the name, they're secrets for your business.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and the best way is to show this by example, the formula for Coca-Cola, uh, the search algorithm that Google uses when you type in some words to search on.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: They don't just that's a a secret that they keep internal.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you there's nothing you file to protect a trade secret.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: What you do is internally limit access to it, uh control, control it, and protect it.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Coca-Cola's protected their formula for I don't know, probably at least 100 years, but very strict access to it.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of people think it's just for the big companies, but most companies I run into, and myself included, I have trade secrets in my business.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's my email list and some of my other business practices and the ways that I work with clients.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's it's not just the big corporations, it's anything that if if it got leaked out, it could help a competitor or give them an advantage against you.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So just okay.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the four key areas.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: The trade secrets are a little bit of an outlier because you don't really file anything or take anything affirmative to protect it other than keeping it a secret.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: I remember as a kid that uh of course it's called KFC now.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um Kentucky Fried Chicken, they I think they had commercials that talked about their 11 herbs and spices or something like that.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So that would fall into that category as well.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's a trade secret, also.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what they put in that chicken, but it's really good.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's all I know.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good combination, yeah.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's extremely addictive.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: So um, well, let's dive into the process of writing this book because um you're kind of joking earlier that you know it was a book that took a decade to write.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think many of us can relate to that exact thing, that it just takes a while to get these things done.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, can you talk first of all about why you wrote the book?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously you're sharing a lot of information, but really what was the impulse that led you to put your knowledge about this topic into the form of a book?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted well, several reasons.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I've always wanted to have a book published.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, let's let's do it.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: So when this virus stuff happened earlier in the year, I thought I'm probably gonna have some extra time here, especially little blocks of time here and there that I could fill in.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get this done.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I had in previously I had toyed around with a bunch of different ideas, writing a book about innovation and some other things.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then I kind of I finally focused in and said, what would my current clients and future clients, or even people that aren't going to be clients, they're just they're inventors and they just don't understand the patent system and don't really know what they need to be doing.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's just confusing to them.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: What do they really need?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I kind of boiled it down to these three steps.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I want something to give my clients and other people in the space.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And even if people never talk to me, never come in direct contact with me, I want something out there to help them uh protect their ideas.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I it's frustrating and heartbreaking to me when I have a conference call with somebody who has some inventions that they want to protect and they're too late.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: There are certain deadlines from the time you release an invention publicly till you have to get a patent application filed.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's I hate it when I have to say, I'm sorry, you can't protect that invention because you blew the deadline.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: So if I can get something out there, and along with some articles and things will be related to the book to help some people, even if I never talk to them directly, that's it's just great for me to know that it's getting out there and it's gonna be helping some people and maybe provide clarity and especially about some of these deadlines and some of the pitfalls that people fall into.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I'll just ask this directly, and I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: But uh you you have mentioned that it took a while to finish this book.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: What were some of the reasons why you felt like it took a while to get this done?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think partly the topic when I was looking at innovation and some of those other areas, I love innovation.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love sitting down with inventors and doing brainstorming and helping them uh flesh out their ideas.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think it's what I wasn't that passionate about it.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I've I've got a whole bunch of different outlines on my hard drive, book outlines, and even some getting fairly detailed.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: But then when it got into writing all the different subsections and actually getting it written, it's like this isn't really what I want to do.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I got some feedback uh from people in the tech world saying, we don't really want your help with innovation.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: They they kind of think that's kind of they know it.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they they think that's their area of expertise.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, we're the technical experts, we're great at coming up with new ideas and things.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: But as an outside person, I can still come in and I can give them a different perspective and maybe help lead some of their discussions.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: But with that, they really may not even have much interest in the book.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: So then when I went to the next question, I said, Well, if it's not innovation, then what is it?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's like intellectual property.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: We don't understand that.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: We don't understand what you do.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: We no way we want to try and figure out the patent laws.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we want help with.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I kind of refocused, even though the first step of my book of the three steps is identifying all your inventions.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of part partly of that is an innovation process.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have enough inventions yet, let's do some brainstorming and get a bigger pool of inventions so you have a bigger group to evaluate.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's great.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I think I was I was in a different uh I just wasn't on the right subject.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't zeroed it in.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And once I knew I'm writing something that this the tech people and other inventors want and need, then it was a lot easier to get motivated.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the other shift I made was I decided I'm not writing a 40,000-word book.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: I know that that's a standard 30, 40,000.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want to get enough information in there to help people, but if it's shorter, great.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they'll consume the whole thing and get the value out of it.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: So my book's about half that length.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I had several authors who've published multiple books.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's your book, write it how you want.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: 40,000 words doesn't make it magic.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of books, that's what it takes.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you can describe yours in 20 or less, fantastic.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's your book.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so yours is about 20,000 words.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually just under.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's about 17.
• 15:36
  unknown: Okay.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I love that principle.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is such an important thing don't make the book any longer than it has to be because you're at that point, you're just filling it with unnecessary stuff.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I love that short and sweet idea.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Get in, get out, and you let people be done.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: And plus, whenever we finish a book, we have this or maybe this is just me.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: I but I think it is universal that whenever you're able to read a book and finish it, you you feel really good because you actually finished it, as opposed to all those books that we read half of and then we set it aside.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you've done something really important uh in helping your readers to feel like they just got a win by actually finishing a book.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the lot of people that work in the tech companies and other industries too, but you know, the the silk Silicon Valley standard is they're workaholics, they're they're working so much.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Try giving them a 250, 300 page book and say, here, here's what you need to know.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Probably going to collect a lot of dust.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Where if like this one's thinner, not nearly as many pages, you could get well, we're not flying as much these days, but you you could get through the whole thing on a reasonable length flight, um, or just take a couple of days and set out a little bit of time each day.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So um just looking, I guess, at my target audience and realizing what I think will work best for them.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Was there anything that helped you to get particularly focused so you could get the book finished, get it published?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, of course, we had the pandemic, you know, well, it's not, I wasn't gonna say we had the pandemic, we still have the pandemic, it's still with us.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it was our constant companion.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: But was there anything specific that you did to help you get focused and just produce the book and get the actual work done?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: For me, I do a lot of technical writing when I write patent applications.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: So those documents are very structured.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I took the same approach to the book.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: I started with an outline of the three main steps that I want to talk about, and then broke it down into chapters, and then each chapter into its subsections.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: So then when I had maybe a 30-minute block of time to write, I was just I wasn't stressed because I can't write in the entire chapter in 30 minutes, but I could pick one or two of the subsections and and just write that.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I also, when I went back over my blog and saw how many articles I've written and took pieces of those and then reworded them a little bit.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, there'd be a 500-word chunk of text with a tiny bit of editing that's all done because I can just can plug it in there.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it was getting that structure.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I know some people can just kind of write them, not freehand, but just off the top of their head, or they dictate the whole thing out.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't do that.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: I needed the structure, but then I could look and say, hey, I let's talk about evaluation today.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: I write about it.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds some exciting to me today, or I just had some ideas on that.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I go find that and I write one or two of the sections in there.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: So just let me kind of work the book writing in to the gaps that I had and leverage some of the content I already had that just made it made it easier and it kept me moving along.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was adding at least a thousand, two thousand words a week.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I could get I saw the progress and that kept me motivated.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: I really love that.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Just using the gaps that you have.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's not like you have all this gigantic space during the day.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you've got a family as well, you know, you've you've got clients you're dealing with.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you were able to fit it in and get it done, which is a great example.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's nice to have it done.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: My 10-year book.
• 19:12
  unknown: Yeah.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, it it's all good.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's all good.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: So do you if you were going to give any advice for first-time writers, like people who are thinking about writing a book and they just haven't pulled the trigger, anything that you would say to them that you have learned with your with your book launch?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as far as the writing process, like I had mentioned earlier, the what's the what's the goal of the book?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what what do you want the reader to get out of it?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then I guess think about what they need to know.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: So a standard format that I've seen a lot of people talk about is kind of set set the intro, set the stage at the beginning.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: What's what are the issues and why is this important?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I kind of worked into.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then I introduced the three different steps in my system, and then one or two chapters for each one, and then kind of a wrap-up at the end.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: But think about if the person hopefully reads the whole book when they set it down, what have they learned?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: What's how have you improved their life?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: And be sure that the book kind of leads to that.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, I think that something that will hopefully make my book more valuable is you can read the chapters somewhat independently.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to read every single chapter in order.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I know there's some sections that for some people it may not make sense.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I tried to kind of think through how they're gonna read it.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And is it something it's not a reference book, but is it something like how did Steve talk about doing this brainstorming?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: They can go find back and find that section.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um does that answer your question, or did I get off track?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: No, that that's that's great.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's really, really great.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: So and I think it's it's a lot of it's really encouraging just to hear your perspective on hey, I actually figured out a way to get this done amidst a global pandemic, amidst a very busy schedule, you know, with with young kids at home.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's something just a lot of people have to contend with, especially because a lot of people do have kids at home and they're figuring out how do they do schooling, and you know, I've got this job and I've got you know other things happening.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: How do I actually get the writing done and finish it?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I it's a huge encouragement to know, hey, you you figured out a way to get it done.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and one other thing I I just popped into my mind.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I love Seth Godin.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's a writer and thought leader.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And some one of his I don't know if it's officially a trademark, but one of his slogans is just ship it.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, I love it.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's get it done and get it out there.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I would repeat that probably a few hundred, maybe a thousand times as I was writing the book.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's like if it's sat on my hard drive for 10 years, I would think about all the people that it could have helped had I gotten something out there, but nobody sees it when it's sitting on my computer.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: But Getting it done, getting it out there, even if it's not perfect.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I kept having more ideas.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's another section I want to I would have added to the book, but we were already all done with the editing.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, so I've got a list of what's going to go in version two or in the next book.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: But just get to a point, get it done, and and ship it.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And there's I I don't remember who it is as uh an executive for a tech company who said, if if you're not at least a little bit embarrassed by the first product you put out, whether it's a book or software or something, you waited too long to release it.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that is so true.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it is.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there'll always be a mistake.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm a perfectionist and writing patent applications, we have to be really, really careful not to have typos and things because of the it's a legal document.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And uh in the book, you know, if there's a typo, it's not gonna kill me.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I we checked it, we had editors, and I found one the other day anyway.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: No big deal, but that's a great feeling.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Nolan, you you got that 17,000 words.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's something's gonna that we got a straight colon stuck in there somewhere.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but uh years ago that probably would have bugged me, and maybe that may have been part of what held me up on writing my book is it's gonna be a lot of work.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, I was hung up on the 40,000 words and all the editing, all the work.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, and what if I put out a book that's got a typo in it?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, I guess that puts me up there with about 95% of all the other books.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it really does.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's just like it's whatever it takes for you for the motivation.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: For me, just thinking about the just ship it, get it out there, especially today with electronics, I can I can fix that typo if I want, upload new files to Amazon, and it's it's updated within a day or two.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not that big a deal.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I self-published it, so you know, we don't have 20,000 copies sitting in a warehouse somewhere.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: So just don't let those things hold you back and write your book, right?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: What you want to write, because if you write something that you're excited about and that you'll get out there, that's gonna do more value than something that you don't really want to write and never get out there because it's not gonna help anybody.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, see, this has been a blast.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I've taken a couple pages of notes and I hope that they're legible later.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: When I go back to do my show notes, uh, there's probably a 50-50 chance some most of it's legible.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how can our listeners get in contact with you if they would like to find out more about your book, learn about all the cool things you're doing?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: And if there's somebody out there who works for a company in the tech space, maybe they could also use your help with their patents.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my website is steve sponseller.com.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And there's information there about the book, and there's quite a few other articles.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Some are specifically on patents, but there's some other articles on how to protect your creative work.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you're writing a book or articles or creating other things, it it talks about how you can protect them with both copyrights and trademarks.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: So some free resources there that could be helpful.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've I've been to your blog before, and I think we we did we work together on some a couple of writing things a while back.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to okay.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: That that's right, that's right.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I learned so much from that it was okay, okay.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, time is kind of run together.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're in like the time warp zone here.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I I'm fascinated by what you do, and I think it's a great it's a great service.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I just want to take a second to say I appreciate your friendship and I appreciate the value that you're adding to the world by getting your book out there and and sharing your wisdom and your knowledge with people that's really important to protect your inner your intellectual property.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: So this is this is really important.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate you dedicating your time and your creative powers to getting that knowledge and wisdom out there.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, thank you.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that, Kent.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I appreciate you for having me on the podcast here so I can let more people know about it and and all the other great people that you're interviewing and uh sharing their knowledge with with all the other writers and and other business people out there.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's been totally my pleasure.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I appreciate it.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, thanks.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Steve.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: I had a blast learning about this whole area of intellectual property, and I was also really inspired by how he was able to finish his book.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: I know I've gotten stuck in that pattern before of starting a book but not finishing it.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: And my guess is that you probably have as well.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Here are my three biggest takeaways from our conversation.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Number one is I simply want to review the four types of intellectual property protection that Steve mentioned in this conversation.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Number one is copyright, which means literally the right to copy something.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Number two is trademarks, which identifies you or your brand.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Number three is patents, mostly for inventions.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then number four is trade secrets, like the formula for Coca-Cola or you know these the 11 secret herbs and spices in KFC chicken.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: I guess it's not called KFC chicken, it's just called KFC.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, when I was a kid, we called it Kentucky Fried Chicken, so uh sometimes I still have a little trouble thinking of it as KFC.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, they have their their secret herbs and spices or whatever that is.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and apparently that's a trade secret.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because if that got out, then everybody could replicate it.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, those are the four types of intellectual property protection.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea I was going to go down the fried chicken pathway on that one, but anyway, be that as it may.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh takeaway number two is an insight that I really, really appreciated Steve sharing, and that is write what helps people.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Steve said that he struggled for a while with this book because he wasn't on the right subject.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that was a really insightful thing to say.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: So a great question that we should ask ourselves is what do people need?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: What would help them?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: What problem can I help people solve with my writing or with my book or my content?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: I also loved what Steve said about nobody seeing a book if you leave it sitting on your computer.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: And man, that is a great insight.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes we create all this stuff, whether it's books or blog posts or podcasts or whatever it is, and we get halfway through it and it just sits there languishing as a group of digital files on our computer.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: And when it's sitting on our hard drive and it's not out there impacting people, then it doesn't really do any good.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I love that that idea of write what helps people and get your stuff out there.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then finally, takeaway number three is how Steve got his book done.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought this was a very simple and effective strategy for doing this.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: He talked about creating an outline for the chapters, then writing out the subsections of the chapters, and then simply getting it done by working in little chunks of time and using material that you've already written.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, if you're a blogger and you've already got blog posts written that touch on the subject that you're writing your book about, then use those blog posts in your book.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Repurpose that material.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, go back and listen to I don't know what what number it was, but um about a year ago or maybe eight or ten months ago, I did an episode on a bunch of different ways to repurpose content.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was like 11 ways to repurpose content or whatever it was.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, go back and listen to that episode because I go through a lot of different ways that you can repurpose your content.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Leverage the stuff that you already have, whether it's blog posts, articles, um, podcast episodes, social media posts, and different things like that.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: So those are three really important takeaways.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: This was a really, really fun conversation, and I want to give a huge thank you to my very special guest, Steve Sponceller.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: Steve is a great guy, and I encourage you to check out his site at steve sponseller.com and also check out his book on Amazon.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Cracking the Patent Code.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, even if you don't think of yourself as an inventor or you don't work for a company that's like in the tech space or that kind of stuff, I think it's it's very helpful to check out this book because you'll learn a lot of cool things as you're doing this.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, I just wanted to throw this out there.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh make sure and check out the book and check out Steve's site.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And also, thanks so much for listening.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: I say that every episode, but I appreciate you listening and um always appreciate your time and attention.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: As always, you can find lots more resources for writers at KentSanders.net.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: And until next time, remember that your writing has the power to change people's lives.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'll see you in the next episode.