The following is a transcript of a video, which you can watch here.
I can definitely relate to the special concerns that small businesses must consider when hiring a trademark attorney. When I launched my law practice in 1999, I was myself, a solo entrepreneur, starting a small business. Believe it or not, I actually worked in a restaurant waiting tables for the first year or two so that I could put all the money that I earned filing trademark applications for clients back into growing my business.
In my experience working with thousands of small businesses over the last 20 years, I have come across three main concerns for small businesses to consider when selecting a trademark provider.
- The first is cost. As a small business, every cost must be delicately weighed because the funds that go towards a trademark attorney could easily go towards marketing or staffing or other valuable needs for the small business. I understand these particular concerns – and that’s why we’ve charged flat fees with predictable costs for every single trademark application filed since 1999.
- Second is evaluating what to protect and prioritizing based on a budget. We work with businesses all the time based on their budget to determine what are the most important trademarks to protect because it’s quite likely that a small business can’t afford to immediately protect all of their potential trademark filings.
- Finally, it’s choosing a law firm that understands and relates to the needs of the small business. As I said, I am a small business. My wife, as a matter of fact, owns two restaurants and operates those successful small businesses. I work with small businesses every single day of the year and for that reason, I developed to my flat fee program from day one in 1999 and now, 20 years later, I’ve helped clients register more than 3,000 trademarks with the US Patent and Trademark office.
While many of my clients are small businesses, I’ve also had the opportunity to work with medium and large businesses, multinational corporations over the years.
Our model at Erik M Pelton & Associates has been built to specifically address these three concerns. Our combination of flat all-inclusive fees, quality service, tremendous experience, and proprietary software that we crafted is unparalleled.
