Austin Bonderer: Why Your Best Ideas Need Protection Before Someone Else Claims Them

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I'm here with Austin, and Austin is a patent specialist,

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patent attorney. He's got one of those careers that we

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really don't want to know too much about. We just

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want someone to help us fix it. So he's going

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to be sharing some insights and some ways to think

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about things later in the journey. Welcome. Thank you for

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joining us. Thanks for having me, Roy. So tell us

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a little bit about your journey. First of all, you

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studied. You give us a little brief about how you

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get to be where you are right now. Basically, when

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I started becoming, like, when I got into patents, it

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tended to be something that people fell into. Now it

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tends to be a career where I'm being asked, hey,

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I'm going to engineering school, and then I want to

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go to law school, then I want to become a

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patent attorney. Because you, at least here in the US

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you have to be either have an undergrad in science

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or an undergrad in engineering in order to even sit

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for the patent bar. Yeah. So basically what happened to

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me was I was in engineering school and my thesis

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project was on invention that I had that would. It

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was a wireless smoke detection system. And so I explored

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the patent process as part of that thesis, which I

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became interested in. I wanted to work at the university

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because who doesn't want to work at a university? It's

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a lot of land, it's perfect, it's beautiful, everything's great.

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There's no real world there. Right. They're like, no, young

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man. You must go out and you must learn, and

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then maybe you can come back. I was applying, and

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the two jobs I was offered, one was a construction

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company because my background was civil engineering, and the other

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one was the US Patent Office as a patent examiner.

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I chose to become a patent examiner. So I ended

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up working there five and a half years, went to

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law school at night, and then became a patent attorney.

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So generally at the time, that's how most people got

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into patents, as they fell into it. Now it just

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seems like something that people are actually targeting from the

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beginning of their undergrad. So we'll see how that goes.

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I think all of US Attorneys are a little concerned

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about how AI is going to affect our livelihood. Yeah.

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Wow. What a big question and conversation that is. I

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guess we could do a couple of podcasts just on

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that and yeah, some something after my own art. Where

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do you see the challenges of AI A for your

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own job, but also for your own career? But also

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what works and what doesn't work right now? Well, right

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now it's still in its infancy, and you can tell

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it's going to get better. But I think the big

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problem with AI and the way it works, so I've

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been talking with people and it's the poisoning of AI

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that I think may be the problem. Because say you.

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Let's just say you're doing plumbing and you have a

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hundred pictures of the proper way a plumbing fixture is

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supposed to be put in. But say there's five bad

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ones but somehow they get accepted is okay, AI is

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going to take that. They're not going to be able

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to distinguish what's right from wrong. And what you need

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is shepherds. I call them shepherds. I think we're the

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last generation that is going to have the experience to

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be able to point out when AI is wrong. So

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the problem is going to be is that when we

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have these young attorneys come up and if they're just

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constantly using AI or if they're just not even attorneys

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doing it and it's just AI doing it, you get

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to that idiocracy concern where the computer says this is

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what's right, this is what works, and that's it. And

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the poison pill is in there. And if there's no

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one in there with the experience to say this is

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wrong, it's going to be wrong, and it's going to

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manifest even worse results down the road. So that's my

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concern with AI and the use of it, is that

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you still need people with experience to check it and

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make sure it's right 100%. And I think there's

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such a big piece here on the human right. It's

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the human. Well, I'm speaking to so many people about

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how do you keep the human in. A lot of

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people are seeing AI as an 80% tool now and

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100% tool in the future. And I don't believe that's

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the case. I believe right now it's a 60% tool.

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And you need to. One of. One of the people

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I spoke to talk, spoke about bookending with AI And

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I'd take that one step further, and I'd say club

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sandwich it. AI at the end, AI in the middle,

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and AI right at the beginning. Because, you know, the

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process as we go through this, we have to remain

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the AI architect, right? We have to remain the voice

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of leadership. I'm going to remain the thought leader. I

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want you to be my thought partner. Mr. AI. I

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want. We're going to follow this process, and you need

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to know what that process is and the intricacies of

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it. So that you can. Yeah. Not just accept everything

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that's coming in. So that's a real piece. And I

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think the companies, or know the companies that keep AI

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as the grinder, the one that comes in and does

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the menial tasks that we don't want to do, that'll

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allow us to be more human. That'll allow us to

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bring the human to the surface and that'll allow companies

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that we're. Yeah, if we're building our company and you

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have more human in the company, that's really going to

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stand out from all these companies that are just doing.

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A. Yeah, I believe that. I've already had people come

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up to me and be like, hey, I had a.

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Write my application. Can you file it? And I'm like,

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no, I can't. Because one, it still needs fixing. Like

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you said, it's the club. It's a club. Savage. There's

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a tool, but it's not the end all, be all.

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And I end up spending more time trying to fix

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someone else's work, even if it's AI, than just starting

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from scratch and writing it. And then there's just other

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little things, things that you gained with 25 years of

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experience in this field that AI just doesn't have. It

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just takes. It's like first year law student writing when

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they try it, and it's, hey, after 25 years, you're

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not to do this and this or to do xyz.

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And it just hasn't figured that out. And that's just

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where it's at. So I don't know how it's going

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to work if you're just going to have models. Some

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law firm has developed a model and they've done it

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really well. And the other things, I think a lot

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of AI right now is just. It's. People think they're

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doing. Doing AI, but it's early. They're literally just automating

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a process. Yeah, true AI. Yeah, I

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think that automated the process. Sorry to interrupt. I think

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that automating a process has been available for 10 or

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15 years and people haven't been doing it right now.

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It's easy. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's it. So we

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spoke a little bit about. Yeah. The challenges for AI

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in. In your career. And I think we're in such

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a space coming up that there's going to be just

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one after the other, off the other, collapsing. And we

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have this, this eighth massive point in the world where

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we're growing things like the Internet and the phone system

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and the printing press. And as we go through the

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next year, 2026 is going to be a massive year

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for this. We're going to see all of that. And

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in your space. In my space, I can see a

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lot of what's happening. There's going to be a whole

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bunch of roles that are created. This AI architect I

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talk about is one of them. Engineer, automation engineer, virtual

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C, chief AI officer. All this kind of stuff is

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going to come in. And this is the same as

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when the Internet came out and there were no Internet

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engineers. What do you see in your space that could

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potentially be useful to you? I think one of the

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things that may be useful is prior art searching. Because

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when people do it, they're limited by scope and time.

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There is no search that's 100%. You can still get

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a patent. And if your patent is issued, goes forward

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and then some other company and you start suing them,

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the first thing that they do is they initiate a

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prior art search. Because no search is 100. The examiner

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is only searching pretty much the United States. If you

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hired a search firm, I'm sorry, if it's a US

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Patent, if it's a US Attorney, our searchers are generally

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searching US Documents because that's what the examiners are. And

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we're trying to get it through the patent office, but

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we're not searching in Korea and we're not doing all

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the stuff. So if AI would be able to instantaneously

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translate or this or that, they may be able to

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find prior art that was not available before, which may

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really decrease the number of patents that are allowed. Not

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out of nefarious reasons, just because people have a limited

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scope. Yeah. There's. The patent examiner only has X amount

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of time that it's allotted for searching and examining the

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application. Yeah. So they search reasonable amount of time. They

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can't find something. It's allowable, but they're not like going

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through the archives of the. I always say, like South

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Korea and stuff like that. They have tons of prior

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and they're very innovative and they have a very robust

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patent system. But no one really goes and looks over

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there. Japan's another one. You have a lot of prior

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art, but it's really hard to look at. You can't

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read it. So you're like, it's just over there purchasing

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North. Let's. Let's transition a bit. Now. For those

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people that are not quite sure of the difference between

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copyright a patent, there's a. It's quite a mystical

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black box art. Yeah. As a way to actually Understand

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what do I need? I've got a computer program I've

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written, or I've got a, you know, a new thing

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that I've developed. And I think about patent as really,

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I built a new mouse, so now I can patent

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the mouse. And there's restrictions and things on that. So

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perhaps talk to that for rule. Patents cover your methods

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and apparatus for a limited amount of time and give

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you a monopoly. And in here in the US And

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I think even the eu, it's a little bit this

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way, too. The software has taken a hit. It's very

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hard to patent software here in the United States. And

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I guess the easiest way to delineate what's patentable and

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what's not. And this always exceptions. This is not the

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card and fast rule. But I always say if. If

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a person like Rain man could do it in their

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head. Taking generic. So you have a generic sensor, gives

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you some information. You process it through algorithms or compare

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it to a database, and you spit out an output

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that's not going to be patentable anymore. Because the Supreme

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Court here in the United States said that generic sensor

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is not physical enough to translate that abstract idea into

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a physical invention. Because what we used to do is

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just say, hey, it's software that runs on a computer's

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physical object. So hence it's not abstract. Supreme Court in

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the ALICE decision said, no, that's trickery. We're not going

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to allow that. So software has had a really hard

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time. The easiest way to decide if you have patentable

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invention here in the United States, one of the ways

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is if it is possible. Granted, it's almost impossible because

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computers are much more data points, but theoretically possible, someone

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could do it in their head. You cannot patent. Wow.

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Okay. Yeah, yeah. And so trademarks was another

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one that we deal with that's just identification of a

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source of goods. So what I tell people is what

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we try to do is we try to get you

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a federal registration of your trademark, because you don't need

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the federal government, the R with the circle, to give

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you a trademark. Once you put goods out there for

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sale and in commerce or services, and this kind of

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stuff with a name, you have a trademark because it's

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an identification of a source of goods. So what we

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try to do is we try to register that because

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it gives it a lot more protection nationally. If you

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rely on common law and you sometimes you see with

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the little tm, that means you're relying on common law

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type of laws, which means it's geographically sequestered to the

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effect that you have, in other words, obviously say you

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had an in and out. I don't know if you're

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familiar with that, but it's a burger chain that was

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normally just in Southern California. They wouldn't have the ability

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to stop someone in Maine from having a. If they

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were relying on common. But they are not, obviously. One

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of the interesting things is people think about it. There

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are a lot of companies that don't even have registered

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trademarks, one of them being American Airlines. Wow. Okay. Yeah.

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Because the reason is. I assume the reason is because

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it's descriptive. They would not be able to tell Delta

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that they can't call themselves an American airline. Okay. So

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you can't register descriptive terms. You can't pull things out

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of lexicon that other people need to use to properly

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describe their products. That's the interesting. And when you really

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think about trademarks, it's there for the protection of the

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public. Because we live in a capitalist society, people are

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making instantaneous decisions on whether to buy something or not.

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So the idea is that you're actually protecting the public

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with trademarks than you are giving the company value. But

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it does give the company value. It gives it goodwill.

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So when you walk into a McDonald's in LA or

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you walk into a McDonald's in New York, you assume

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the quality is the same or you are able to

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hold it against that company if the quality isn't. If

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you don't like the quality. So you know whether you

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like McDonald's or not, regardless of where you go now,

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someone was infringing that Coming to America is the one

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I always use. And I guess I'm a little bit

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too old for a lot of these kids today. But

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remember, McDowell's was the name of the place. And McDonald's

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people were always coming after them because, say, they had

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a bad experience at McDowell's. People might not delineate that

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from McDonald's, theoretically. So then they would hold it against

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McDonald's. That's why it's unfair. This is why we have

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trademarks. And you can get a registered trademark no matter

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how long you've already been in business. Obviously, patents you

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have to do do it at the beginning. You can't

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disclose your idea. You need to get a patent file

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for a patent right away. I had a client, had

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been in business for over 70 years, and we got

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their trademark registered. Let's move on to another thing that

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you may not, may or may not be able to

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talk to. Yeah. And that's something that's interesting on The

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AI space again, this is one of copyright. Yeah. Is

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that something that you're familiar with? Because that just seems

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to be a total minefield at the moment. I'm familiar

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with the arguments. Copyrights generally are like when people call

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me and they want to do copyrights and books and

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music and stuff like that's generally why it's always entertainment

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lawyers. Okay. So patent people tend to do. There's hard

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IP and soft ip. Trademarks and copyright are considered soft

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IP because anyone can do those. But patent attorneys generally

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also do trademarks as well. Copyright tends to be a

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little different. That tends to be in the entertainment space.

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That's when you're dealing with artists and these kind of

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things. And like you said, scrubbing the Internet for content,

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that's going to be difficult. And I know that a

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lot of people are upset that AI is doing it,

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but the government wants to let them do it because

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we're not even just competing for better models for commercial

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purposes. We're trying to go for better models for national

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defense purposes. And even if we were to on the

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western world limit our LLMs from learning

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from material that's on the Internet, certain adversaries are doing

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it anyway. They don't care if we do it or

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not. So we're like, we're, they're afraid that we're hamstringing

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ourselves by maintaining these copyright rights from the LLMs,

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using it or learning from it. But again, I go

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back and forth because say it was just a person

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reading it. Yeah, they learned it. Are you now

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in violation of copyright because you've learned information and you've

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re free phrased it and consumed it. You talk to

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anybody and they talk health stuff. And I just read

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this and now I'm going to do this. It's, that's

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not copyright infringement. So it's tough. I understand both sides

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of it. Wow. Yeah, that's a minefield. Right? So you

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just mentioned health stuff. It's above my pay grade. That's

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someone else. Yeah. I want to just talk about the

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health stuff very quickly because that's something that I'm very

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passionate about. We run our own businesses. It becomes this

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real piece of that Businesses are all, we're in the

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world, we're solving a problem. We're, we're really, we're passionate

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about it. And we, we tend to at some point,

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if you're not very careful, put our own self separate

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and our company first, our product first. And then we

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have this challenge of not being looking, of not looking

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after our health you know, not looking after our mental

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health, not looking after our physical health. And yeah, this

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is so important for your energy, for your production, for

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your profit, for your client relations, for everything. And talk

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to me about what your thoughts are on that. Do

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you have any of your own experiences that you know,

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maybe gave you some insights and what do you do

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for your own health? I guess that's I. So here

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in U. S I assume same over there, that lawyers

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can take one of two routes. They can either be

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that hardcore litigator, they are spending 80 hours a week

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working and this kind of stuff, or you can move

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to the other side where you tend to be more

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transactional and whatnot. When I was young, the idea of

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success was money. It's money, wealth, this I'm accumulating. I

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want that big boat. This is what I want. As

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I've gotten older, when I have my own firm, I'm

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: 00:17:25

able to pick my own clients. I'm able to decide

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the amount of work that I do. Now I just

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: 00:17:30

look at it, am I taken care of? Is my

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family taken care of and are we good? Can I.

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My son just graduated high school, but I was trying

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: 00:17:37

to be there for every single game of his sporting

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contest, every little thing that could possibly do. Because at

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the end of the. When you really look back at

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: 00:17:44

life, you don't ever say, and I believe it. I

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: 00:17:47

wish I worked more. This does have real world effects.

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We're not, we're not rolling in it. There's still. We

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: 00:17:54

do have concerns about budgeting and this and that. Whereas

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if you worked 80 hours a week, you wouldn't. The

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: 00:18:00

way I look at it, if you're not making money,

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you're spending money. So it's kind of like the more

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: 00:18:04

free time you have, the more money you need. So

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that's the way I look at it for sure. And

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then there's this real balance, right? There's this balance. We

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: 00:18:12

start our own business because we want that freedom. And

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I think you've really managed to understand the importance of

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the family, understand the importance of your own health. But

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: 00:18:23

for 70% of businesses, US and UK actually there's a

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: 00:18:27

70% of business owners, small business owners are close to

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: 00:18:30

burnout because the reason that we got into running our

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: 00:18:35

own business was freedom. That's the number one freedom. We

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: 00:18:38

get into our own business, we do it, we're tackled

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: 00:18:41

with some real problems. For the first one is loneliness,

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: 00:18:44

right? Running your own company is super lonely. And people

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: 00:18:46

don't realize that people that aren't doing it don't realize

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: 00:18:48

it. Firstly, you start doing it. You excited, you talk

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: 00:18:51

to your family or your friends and after the third

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: 00:18:54

conversation, they really don't want to know anymore, right? They

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: 00:18:57

really don't. Yeah. And then the second thing is, unless

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: 00:19:00

you're very careful, the thing that you're going towards to

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: 00:19:04

give you freedom becomes your biggest prison. Right. You end

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: 00:19:09

up spending not the 8 hours or 10 hours a

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: 00:19:12

day you're spending in the office, you're not spending 14

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: 00:19:15

hours a day in the, in your company, and you're

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: 00:19:18

spending the remainder of the day thinking about it and

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: 00:19:21

planning and structuring. You can't turn off. Yeah. What is

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: 00:19:24

your thoughts or your insights into that? I, I talk

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: 00:19:27

to clients all the time and one of the things

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: 00:19:28

that we talk about is they're like, oh, if I

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: 00:19:31

scale up, I'm going to make more money. And it's,

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: 00:19:33

it's not linear. Technically you will make less money for

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: 00:19:37

the amount of work that you do and you increase

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: 00:19:39

the amount of concern that you may have. Now it

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: 00:19:42

may work out that, okay, it just starts running on

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: 00:19:44

all six cylinders and then you're fine. But when you

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: 00:19:48

scale up, you're actually losing money because now you have

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: 00:19:52

capacity that you got to pay for all the time.

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: 00:19:54

Now you're worried about making that capacity work all the

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: 00:19:56

time. You have loans to pay for that capacity or

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: 00:19:59

whatever you're typically doing. Most people don't pay cash for

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: 00:20:02

those kind of things. So I'm like, hey, do you

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: 00:20:06

really need to consider the pluses and minuses of this?

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: 00:20:09

If you're happy where you're at and you're doing well

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: 00:20:11

and you have enough to support your family and this

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: 00:20:14

kind of stuff. Do you truly want to scale now?

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: 00:20:17

Sometimes if you don't scale, you will lose market share.

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: 00:20:20

Your supply. Like they're like, we need more product and

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: 00:20:23

if you're not giving it to us, we're going to

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: 00:20:25

go find something else that's going to make it work

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: 00:20:26

for us. So you might get caught in that, but

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: 00:20:30

you need to make that conscious decision about, don't go

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: 00:20:33

into it blindly. Things are going gangbusters. I'm going to

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: 00:20:35

make all this money, so I'm going to increase my

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: 00:20:37

capacity. We see it with businesses all the time. They

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: 00:20:40

over expand too fast and then they collapse. That talks

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: 00:20:45

to my, my final point, and this is the business

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: 00:20:48

operating system. I don't know if you come across EOS

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: 00:20:51

or bos. And the thing that I coach is a

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: 00:20:54

business operating system and the business operating System is what

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: 00:20:57

it sounds like. It's a system to operate your business.

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: 00:21:00

Yeah. Because we end up working so much in the

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: 00:21:03

business, we can never work on the business because we

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: 00:21:05

get caught in the reeds, we get caught in the

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: 00:21:07

muck of it, and we're. We're always just there grinding.

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: 00:21:10

And the business operating system is a structured way to

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: 00:21:14

grow and scale your company efficiently. If you went to

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: 00:21:16

McKinsey's or if you went to some of the big

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: 00:21:18

players, they would apply a business operating system. And when

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: 00:21:23

I first Learned this in 2017, it was a total

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: 00:21:26

game changer for me. And I grow and scale and

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: 00:21:29

build my companies around the business operating system. And the

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: 00:21:32

reality is, when I take this into people, first of

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: 00:21:35

all, and I start showing them all this is. Oh,

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: 00:21:37

my word, whatever. Yeah. And I don't have the time

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: 00:21:41

to take 20% of my time off and work on

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: 00:21:44

the business. And for me, it was so successful, I

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: 00:21:48

was working 14 hours a day. Yeah. Seven days a

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: 00:21:50

week in my companies. Yeah. And after putting the business

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: 00:21:55

operating system in, I was actually able to acquire a

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: 00:21:57

third company where I didn't spend any time in the

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: 00:22:00

first two companies. Yeah. Because I had to implement the

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: 00:22:04

third company, and then I put the third company into

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: 00:22:07

the first two structures and systems. Then I was able

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: 00:22:10

to acquire a fourth company, which went horribly wrong. And

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: 00:22:13

I nearly lost all my. Lost everything. But that's a

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: 00:22:16

whole other story. But the structure, the understanding the philosophy

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: 00:22:20

of these business operating systems. Yeah. Is something that I'm

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: 00:22:23

trying to bring to small business owners because the big

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: 00:22:26

players can cost me £100,000 to learn this stuff. The

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: 00:22:29

expensive lessons are the ones you learn best. That 100,000

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: 00:22:33

was literally just the coach. Right. Yeah. Oh, gotcha. Yeah.

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: 00:22:38

How many thousands I lost before that because I didn't

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: 00:22:40

know this, because I couldn't grow, because I couldn't scale,

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: 00:22:42

because I couldn't understand the core competencies you need to

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: 00:22:44

run a business. So it just. Yeah. It's a real

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: 00:22:47

interesting time now that the small business owners have the

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: 00:22:50

access to all of this information. And being that we're

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: 00:22:54

in the information world. Yeah. And that information is now

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: 00:22:57

free, Right. Yeah. This is the entire shift that we're

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: 00:23:01

coming into. How do we make sure we have the

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: 00:23:03

right information? How do you make sure you have. I

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: 00:23:06

think the idea of coaching and what you're doing in

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: 00:23:08

some regards is you're coaching people on how to get

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: 00:23:11

their patent. Right. Yeah. And I wouldn't go to somebody

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: 00:23:15

who isn't a patent coach. To get a patent, I

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: 00:23:18

just wouldn't. And I at the beginning didn't understand how

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: 00:23:22

business ran. So I just figured it out on my

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: 00:23:25

own. If I'd done this in 2002 when I first

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: 00:23:28

started my first UK company, I'd be stinking rich. Winner.

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: 00:23:34

Now I'm not seeking rich, but that's more because I

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: 00:23:37

spend so much money and living the life I love.

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: 00:23:39

But I have the capacity to do that which is

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: 00:23:41

so important to me. I have the freedom. I do

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: 00:23:44

live the life I live. I'm sitting in Florida at

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: 00:23:46

the moment. Last week I was in Seattle. The week

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: 00:23:48

before that I was in a couple of weeks. Before

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: 00:23:50

that I was in Egypt, then I was in France

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: 00:23:53

and I was in the uk. Yeah. So that to

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: 00:23:56

me is much more valuable than having 50 grand in

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: 00:23:58

the bank. But yeah. Have you come across. Yeah. What

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: 00:24:03

do you do? Let's go a different way. What do

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: 00:24:05

you do in your business to make sure the structures

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: 00:24:07

are correct? Do you have a coach? Do you understand

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: 00:24:08

this? Yeah, honestly. Mine's kind of a small law firm.

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: 00:24:12

I guess the. I never really read any of these

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: 00:24:15

books or how to run business stuff. The one thing

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: 00:24:17

I read, it's always stuck out in my mind was

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: 00:24:19

that Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. I don't

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: 00:24:21

know if you're familiar with it. And the biggest thing

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: 00:24:25

that he said that made sense to me or what

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: 00:24:29

he was trying to convey. It's been so long. But

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: 00:24:31

basically it's the fear of failure was worse than the

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: 00:24:35

actual realization of what failure would really look like. And

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: 00:24:38

you should sit down anytime and say, hey, this is

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: 00:24:41

the best that can happen and really give some thought

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: 00:24:44

to what is the worst that can really happen. And

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: 00:24:47

what you'll realize is that the fear of the unknown,

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: 00:24:50

of the worst is not nearly as bad as what

481

: 00:24:53

the worst can happen. And so you need to learn

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: 00:24:56

how to run your businesses this way is that you

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: 00:24:58

need to take that risk. You need to trust your

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: 00:25:01

people. Like you said, if you have proper systems in

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: 00:25:04

place, you can do this. Myself, I've just, I've maintained

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: 00:25:08

my business to where I can do it anywhere I

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: 00:25:10

am. Like you said, you're traveling Florida. I like to

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: 00:25:13

travel a lot of places. And I just bring my

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: 00:25:15

laptop, I'm able to get my work done, I'm able

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: 00:25:18

to bill my hours, my clients are happy. I'm fortunate

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: 00:25:21

enough to work in a business where I don't have

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: 00:25:24

to have face to face time with my clients. Amazing.

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: 00:25:28

So yeah, that's what a blessing that is. What a

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: 00:25:31

blessing that is. Yeah. They don't even want to see

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: 00:25:33

my face. That's the way I look at it. You

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: 00:25:35

show up looking like this. They're like, ah. We'll talk

497

: 00:25:37

on the phone. That's good enough. You got way more

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: 00:25:39

hair than I do. So there's a good contrast here.

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: 00:25:42

Oh, it's making a run, man. It's making a run

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: 00:25:43

for the border. I can tell you this. Yeah, but

501

: 00:25:46

you have a nicer head than I do. I've shaved

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: 00:25:48

my head before. It looks like a Klingon. I don't

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: 00:25:51

know what I'm going to do when this is done

504

: 00:25:53

because it's going. Yeah. So yeah, I'm gonna wrap up

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: 00:25:56

now and I just want to. Yeah. If anyone is

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: 00:25:58

interested in connecting with you. What's the best way to

507

: 00:26:01

do that? They're probably my website, bonderpatents.com but it's nice.

508

: 00:26:06

I'm the only patent attorney I believe with bonder B

509

: 00:26:10

O N D E R E R so you just

510

: 00:26:12

put that in and patents you will find me. I

511

: 00:26:15

have YouTube channels that you can listen to and get

512

: 00:26:18

some information on intellectual property and. Or you can just

513

: 00:26:21

contact me directly through the website here to help any

514

: 00:26:25

way I can. Thank you very much for joining me.

515

: 00:26:27

I do appreciate the insights. Thanks a lot Roy. I

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: 00:26:29

appreciate it.