Cannabis Extractors Need To Be Ready - Patent Warfare (4K)

[Music] education medication all at its finest good life G Warfare that happens with paperwork and lawyers and um that's the ugliest kind of warfare there is my friends we are in the solvent direct Studio at the good life gang house it is Las Vegas 2023 Katherine Sidman and I am about to turn it over to people who are wicked smat and I'm going to start right here with my friend Sean um Sean I want you to introduce yourself tell us who you are and then you and I like you're explaining it to either a 5-year-old or to me we're going to talk about what this is and then we're going to bring Dustin and uh don into the conversation okay introduce yourself so I'm Sean Winfield I'm one of the partners at extraction Tech stainless I've been in the industry since 2014 uh basically I manage the revenue side of the equation for the company yeah um very proud business owner very proud of the Cannabis industry and definitely looking to help protect it going forward well and uh your ETS you're good work in the space keeping people safe since way back with solid Clos lip technology we appreciate you um instead of innovating with your customers and working on new markets and all the other fun stuff I hit you up to do you have been kneed deep in some patent minutia [ __ ] and I want you to take us back to when it started like we don't know anything about it bring us forward hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees forward and tell us where we are now and then we're going to break Dustin and Dawn into it so ironically this all started with our patents getting rewarded okay getting rewarded to ETS okay so you know this was 2015 small company cannabis is up and running everything's going well right we we got awarded design patents on our our current makes which back then was the 1300 the me only right we use that as an excuse as a small business to find general counsel we said hey we got something we got a legal piece of paperwork let's find some lawyers let's actually you know get ourselves nice and protected and figure this out longer term and so uh that's where we met our current legal team they work block 45 out of Denver very good attorneys very good guys right um fast forward to about two two and a half years ago we got a letter from a client um can't name him but a group out in California they were getting uh they were getting sued for patent infringement on the operation of one of our machines yeah so to be very clear they're extracting cannabis in a closed loop butane extractor yep and they received a ceas and assist or they're getting sued for using your extractor the way we all know how everybody uses it because this company says they've patented that yeah it was an extractor that we held a patent on the design so so honestly Matthew and I were confused when we first got that news we said it's like somebody inventing a toothbrush and then suing somebody else for brushing your teeth with it right that's so we call the attorneys right right away and said what do we do what's what's the course of action and they said well you got all kinds of options right you're not getting sued was the first thing they told us we read the paper sounds like a lawyer you guys AR getting sued so your first option is do nothing right second option is let's go down and let's meet with with your clients and let's let's really dig into this legal case and and that was the option we chose to take right away so so we jumped on a plane we sat down in a fancy corporate office and we started talking about and reading some of the legal paperwork and it became very clear that this was this was an attack that was going to be much broader than just a single account than just uh you know a couple people extracting with the machine that this was something that was organized at a level that I don't think any of us were prepared for right we were we were hearing about this patent firm out of Colorado our home state and that they you know had a very specific process to what they were doing here and this was the start of that process and so so Matthew and Jennifer and myself we sat down those are the partners at ETS and we said okay um let's defend this let's defend this let's go after these guys let's let's help our flying out which was the main motivation but let's also hopefully help ourselves and the industry out by you know going through the the specific legal functions that we needed to do to to get some defense here and uh and we learned a lot about patents over those first three months we we learned about how the information had been gathered we read the patents themselves we learned quite a bit on the claim process just how everything worked the mechanics behind the the legal side of it but there wasn't a direct clean path to help in that defense so what we did was we chose to Joint Defense it initially we sat back down with the client and said hey let's let let us work with you and let's let's put a nice stand together and let's let's really draw some lines here and if it goes if it goes to the courts it goes to the courts that's the risk you take right and um the whole purpose of that decision was we were concerned about this group right and I'm not going to name them but we were concerned about this group that had they gotten early settlements in this space at this point in time right and this is before cannabis hit that flattening too right was still some money growing and everybody was still all smiles around but we didn't want to war chest them we didn't want to give patent attorney is a a big chest of funds to start going after other people so so in this example what we chose to do is what's known as an IPR it's an impares review it's basically a process where you call out the US PTO and you say that's the patent office the patent office you say this patent should have never been issued right test it in a way yeah yeah it's a it's a way to pull the patent back so so once patent's awarded things get very structured okay now that patent could be total [ __ ] but as once it's awarded it gets structured there's a way that you go about your defense right and one of those ways is to go to court and say no I'm not I'm not infringing on anything and here's the reasons why you know there's a lot of things you can do there you can change 10% you can you can change the SOP there's some ways to work around but there's so many claims in some of these patents that you've got to really address them all you can't just address a couple of in that that pattern right so the other option is what what was known as the IPR the IPR is a very structured review of the pattern and you know it's expert Witnesses it's going through each specific claim and saying you know this is just nonsense this has been around since the 1960s or the 1800s you know and and you literally attack every claim on that and and if you get enough of them you can pull the patent in its entirety it's not easy to do you can do it right so so we chose to do that and we said you know we're going to we're going to draw a line here right we're going to try to buy some time and and you know we wanted to do it for everybody but there there's self motivation here too you know we're a growing company we're still a pretty small shop back then we're we're looking to get you know full growth going again and we want to make sure that we've got the environment landscape to be able to do that in and so we started this process and and we go through the expert Witnesses and we go through all the interviews and you know legal once a week getting on with the lawyers talking about the updates and what's next and um you know went to court went in front of the U us PTO um un fortunately it was in Denver because because this attorney group happens to be in Colorado too so that was a little bit easier for us we went through the whole IPR process and and in this first round it was three specific patents um I'll send you the patent numbers we can anybody's welcome to read them they're obviously public knowledge but you know one of them was an early early patent in the space we had spoken to the patent owner about three or four years earlier um he asked us to license off that pad and we said we don't we don't need to you know don't really have enough here that was the first patent we went after the other one was was patents that had already been tested legally as well with another manufacturer in the space um we had no choice but to really go after IP iping all three of them at the same time so so we went through the process very expensive process very long process I'd say we're somewhere in it before the decision somewhere in the tune of 600k in in legal fees before we finally got the decisions from the US PTO and in this example we we won effectively you know it's it's tough to really it's not a check mark it's not like win loss right you have all these claims and it comes down to what claims are you pulling away and if you pull away enough of them you basically take the teeth out of the patent I can tell you on the first patent we went against absolutely took the teeth out of it no question about it there really isn't much value left um the second patents we got about half of the claims eliminated right and that it's enough for the time being being but it's it's still there there's the ability to reor Broad Strokes what are these patents about very broad I mean honestly it's the operation of extraction with hydrocarbons okay um in this example got another example which crosses over to a different solvent methodology which is called ethanol processing as well that's the one that we're currently involved and and that one's tricky that one's very tricky but in doing our research and going through this process um you do what every business owner does you try to read as much as you can you try to educate yourself quickly right so we're we're looking at this and we're we're looking at other patents in the space at that point and we're we're trying to come up with some kind of strategy as a small business where we can protect ourselves and and protect our team um and still you know represent a good solid future for everybody and then in in the interim cannabis flattens out yeah and and you know that was kind of a scary eye opening moment because now the concept of a royalty when you're growing you know it's it's it's stomachal you can digest that you can say all right if the money's flowing we can work it in I can raise my price a little bit I can cover when we talk about royalty I want to take it back that this is how this goes down so so this is where we are and then I'm going to open the conversation and it's a freefor all this is this company that's doing this and we're not saying their name because um no which we're not talking about the company that's pursuing or we're not comp no so so the legal firm is gene pool technology jeol Technologies we're through the coure Jee pool Technologies not a company that has invented anything designed anything figured anything out I can't answer okay I don't know but they are a company that holds patent there's potentially a guy involved that does have some some inside and the the from what I hear it's the M the the primary guy and he has built this and how he got approached to jump into this giant patent trol system unknown but there's one guy that does have some precedent and some patents that are getting worked on and they jumped onto that and said hey you're going to be the guy and this guy you know acquires more of them they start buying up Pat buy other people they're currently patenting they're currently going through they're going forward with it and then what they've done is now there's a pitch deck out on the market where they're out actively looking for investors to buy into I'll send you that pitch deck because the plan is they're going to attack all of the hydrocarbon equipment manufacturers they're also attacking at some point the goal is on their little pie chart of investment all the people who have used all of these hydrocarbon extractors they're not just going to tell you to stop they're going to say you owe us a back tax for all the time you've been violating our patent and up until a point and moving forward you might have to pay a royalty as well this is all in their pitch deck this is the plan because and their pitch deck is two investors who want to fund their War chest to pay lawyers to persecute these people to persecute my gang what they're like a they're also pitching to join their Club in a sense right um because there is another option there's a way out you can can either go to court with them and they can go back for for whatever you owe them for whatever they they claim or whatever um or there's an option to join their club and that's this option of giving a certain percentage of your yearly makings um until you've reached a certain level so if you're under 20 million a year they want a million dollars from you eventually if you're over 20 million a year they want $2 million and don't quote me look at the deck um and can you just buy out immediately I got a million dollar cash and I don't know and I don't know the options there but basically it's buy into our club and we're you're part of us now and for the other model a bully comes to your business and threatens to destroy you but if you pay them money they let you keep oh it's a protection racket that sounds like the mafia Jersey I mean I know a little bit about that to be fair so sounds like the IRS yeah but but they're coming they're coming after everyone and here is where it's a little bit of a domino situ not yet not yet not yet so there's a structure to all this so so one thing we all have to realize in cannabis this is a novel industry more or less right now we may have Decades of experience I know a lot of us were Growers a lot of us were producers well before there was any legal Market but from from you know the the state recognizing us we're a novel market right now we're dealing with the same patent [ __ ] that I'm sure the alcohol industry deal with the tobacco industry the software industry dealt with but we're in that time frame right patents only last so long right I think it's 35 years 3 years 17 I believe used to be longer now it's less there there's a period of time that you can monetize that is is basically what it comes down to and and I think we're dealing with we're dealing with real industry situations here because um we got a Target on us that's that's the bottom line because they commoditize right so so we're a nice healthy Target form it's a wide Community most people on the outside of cannabis looking in think we're all flush with cash and all our companies are just printing right um so so I understand how this happens but there is structure to it so so the way these things go down is they got to find settlements early on doesn't matter if it's a manufacturer doesn't matter if it's a producer U really doesn't matter which side of the equation you're on they just have to get settlements so they'll so they send threatening letters and that settlement and that settlement is a point in their favor because then when they go before a judge or they go before a review board they say all of these people acknowledged our p and agre so this is the Domino aspect and this is why ETS is spending so much money defending other people it's why we did right the question is going to continue not an open invite well well in a sense they spent money just to challenge it just to give it a shot and and it it's interesting if you really listen to what he said they they in a sense lost by split decision so so certain things they found yes the this is true they can't necessarily hold you on this but other things they found [ __ ] this this is a a patent that is enforcable this is a patent that's legit and that's the that's an sense the scary part because what how much power does that have and and and if you're talking end user the guy that sells the dabs um and and the other thing to to add to this and not to bounce around it's not just hydrocarbon it's not just hydrocarbon extraction it's alcohol extraction CO2 extraction it's Vape technology it's edible technology whatever the [ __ ] that means it's cultivating it's it's everything it's open it's mobt because of what Sean said it's this novel industry and that means it's ripe across and all they're looking to do is prove cu the whole pitch deck is about like look what we can do and then this thing will just you know exponentially grow and people will buy in it's they've got this like you know pyramid scheme set up Buy in now and get rich with us as we destroy the industry and conglomerate I'll be honest with you when we first started pushing back against them they tried to change the narrative and said hey let's talk about your Pats I bet they wanted to buy your P well no they didn't say buy we're talking about licensing we make this a lot easier for you have any hard words here in the middle you've got money we want it so that's supposedly a rumor too is that they approached some patent owners for kind of a patent tradeoff like hey join our club give us your patents you'll be protected from us [ __ ] cutting everybody's head off or trying to um so yeah yeah not a rumor I can tell you it happened I confirm that was a conversation and see so I want to just kind of where we're at this has been on the forum for a while and kind of flew under my radar what really brought it up is Sean said hey I spent a half million dollars defending this are you you like please take a look at this and that was to me I mean okay I respect this guy in his business why did he spend so much money on this and that right there is like the you took the first big step to get all the serious players that could potentially be impacted at least willing to look at it now because like yeah why did they spend so much money defending other people it must be serious and and it's not just the precedent that's set with one legal team okay that's that's important to them don't get me wrong but it also opens the door to more activity right so what we're seeing right now is is is a slight change here so and and this is where it gets a little trick for me to talk about because we we are still in legal action on this one the the hydrocarbon cases are done um so as precedent is set as as settlements are starting to happen right now we also have a flattening of of revenues across the industry well if you're a manufacture of equipment and let's say you went out of business three or four years ago for whatever reason but you were awarded patents the same style of patents we were awarded right now all of a sudden you don't you don't have your fabrication your welders are gone your machines are not going out the door anymore but you got this piece of paper on the wall and you got people talking to you and Whispering into your ear and saying hey you know you might be able to make some money off that piece of paper we're starting to see that right now okay that's concerning so so alcohol ethanol you know there's there's patents out right now for for cold ethanol processing as and that that's the definition essentially you know negative 40 and colder um that's scary yeah there a lot of a lot of centrifuges a lot of ethanol out in the space right now and and now we're getting pushes from people that were were competitors in some ways when they were manufacturers of course but they were also part of it all you know we're all part of this this this organism we've created together you know you know we we all have to hold each other accountable I think we did a pretty good job of it at the offset of course there's always [ __ ] but but you know I care about you cat you know that um now we're starting to see that shift we're starting to see that shift back to to more players coming into the space finding more legal actions and and the patent system in this country is broken too you can you can file anything and continue to continue continue and change that patent and and stroke that patent as Innovation happens around you you don't even have to be the producer of that inovation your eyes open you just no you got have the paperwork I'm filing this now I'm changing this now and then all of a sudden you get to the point where you've got a solid wall right and it's that solid wall that scares me because three four years ago this industry could have jumped right over it without even thinking about today I'm not sure we can we can adjust to an erosion of margin another 7 and2 to 15% which is what they're asking 7 and 1 half to 15% royalties on every dollar you make well when I dove into this when I dove into this the crazy thing is I was I guess I didn't understand patents and I think the common person doesn't you know and you think of a patent you know there's a drawing usually of some sort and you think okay if I'm not doing the exact [ __ ] thing that's in this drawing then I'm good you know my system looks different than that there's so much conceptual stuff in there and there's so much um you know well like he just said um you know the the the temperature you know I read something about you know uses a solvent that has a different boiling point than the what they're [ __ ] extracting and you're like oh [ __ ] yeah well I mean that's everything um so there's these there's these almost like God you know laws or claws in there that that say well what the [ __ ] no matter what I invent or or improve on or anything it just falls under this blanket of we own everything and and like he said I think the patent system I think that's what's broken here is is is being able to patent something or going after stuff as like a loophole of oh nobody else has done it and you know what I mean whe when it's actively being being used or done or applied for I think a lot of people in our space a lot of people on The Forum you and I have been trying to rev people up on the Forum getting interested in this and they're like ah remember back in the day when so and so said that they were the first clothes Loop extractor but the skunk Farmers did it and people think it's that argument this is no longer an argument between us in the Cannabis industry about who did it first this is a group on the outside coming in to crush to the stomach right little weaklings and it's like ah we're eating today boys come join us and so what do we do to get together to fight I mean how do what do we do we organize okay collectivize fight back talk about it that's what we do yeah we start the conversations yeah we we educate each other right so so when I talk about Matt and I stumbling through patents at the offset um I got a lot of respect for Matt on his P patent knowledge now because he's the technical guy that'll go and read through the minutia in each claim and say okay I think we got to work around or or this is just nonsense um I I don't have those skills I can't read that document the same exact way so so for me I'm a communicator you know I'm an educator in a lot of ways and and we we've got to get serious about this as a community and we've got to say we're not giving it away we're not doing that we're going to fight back the pwo I love that because that's that's the kind of organization it'll take so so other Industries have these these examples there's there's groups out there you pick an industry and there's some group out there that organizes on an IP level right and and patents are not evil right they're not even and the general term of it the way we think about patents protecting in innovation is is okay it's like a gun it's just how did you use the patent did you make a patent so you could defend it from this happening which is the mistake we made I'll tell you a quick story when we were awarded our patents and this was these were just design patents on 1300s and MEPS and and uh before I got in on the team Matt had worked with a group out of New Orleans um guys right off Canal Street and they're they were our patent attorneys that got the patent wed right this guy comes into our office and I'm not kidding he's in a full white suit looks like fogor Leg Horn he sits back and he's he's kicking back he said boys all your trouble drove you're just going to have to hire yourself a woman and she's going to sell licenses for this patents to everybody you guys aren't going to have to make another piece of Steel in your life we're looking at him like what the [ __ ] is this guy talking about like that was never an intention at all we thought we thought hey we're a small manufacturer we're supposed to patent our stuff as protection right that gives us some defense here u i mean those patents themselves are probably the most expensive pieces of artwork on our walls in ETS to be fair we've never tried to monetize it we've always said hey we've got we got that backing and it wasn't until this first case that we were like wait a second no no look we got the pad well that shows you that that's old game like this isn't a new thing like this has happened this is a known thing that's happened in multiple different Industries and and there it's a sadly a a type of business I mean these these firms are are structured over hey give me money back me because I have this plan to do this look at this idea it's going to make us rich just join in the more more people that buy in the more we all make and as long as there been there's been patents the cour system because you can fight they'll fight you to the death they can be wrong and you could lose just because you can't AFF to keep because their law firms keep this spinning in the legal system forever forever well and know this too this this said company and there's others like it too that's another thing that's really scary and people have been talking about him for a long time nobody's really been listening though I want to say uh doc sent me some stuff from Greywolf that he was he was typing off about you doxy or something um some but similar mentality it's patent vultures um that are that are going after you know people that just basically either didn't do the due diligence to get a patent or just didn't know that that they even needed one to like in my case to to make products or to you know what I mean to use a system I bought from a reputable company you know um you know I've I've had an ETS system I've had multiple different systems systems and and to to think that you know I would need to protect myself from just simply buying a system and using that in in my you know much more elaborate Ty Sops and you know we do all kinds of [ __ ] other than just use this steel system imagine if somebody showed up and just said um utilizing an internal cond internal combustion engine with two pedals one for brake one for gas and a steering wheel that's been patented and so everyone who does that has to pay us $100 a year it has now but now I have to as a driver am supposed to pay yeah someone comes and says I found this thing that all of a sudden was earlier a patent that came from before or was different and because of that now everybody that's ever made money driving a truck has to pay me a royalty because you were in violation that's what's saying if you I you're run a coffee business and the coffee machine has some patented thing that the guy you bought the coffee machine it was in violation and they come knocking on the door say you oh it's 15 cents for every coffee cup that you sold because of that violation of the manufacturer of the equipment that you used and they have this worded out modeled out okay this is the response that they have the argument um we ex explain to them how you worded this with me Donnie well in oh the get loss attitude like if you so so this company the other the kind of scary unfortunate thing about this deck and this piece of do this document that this company's proudly put out they want everybody to see it like there no no secret it's it's their [ __ ] sales deck it's like hey this is how we're going to make Mone money it lists all the the different attitudes you can have towards them if we come to you this is what's going to happen and it lays it out that you know if you have the get lost attitude like the Cannabis industry is is known for you know you know having then then this is how it's going to go down and if you think that cannabis you know equipment is unpatentable this is how it's going to go down and and they basically break it down for all these like what most people's argument are when they when somebody comes and says hey you made money off this you owe me and and you start really thinking well wait a minute you know it there only one person that does that that's the government and they word it and they're like look you're maybe you're right that's an argument you need to take up with the guy you bought the equipment from so you need to go now sue him in civil court because you owe us this money and once you do and and I guarantee you it's if you do that we'll help you with that plan on how you're going to sue this guy we we've got the resources to help you come join us and that sense at least and the reality is they do they have the resources they do have the resources organized they are collectivized already so now right now you're an individual against a giant you're like the weak Little Fawn against the Predator and the only way to get the defense is to get back with the herd and as a herd we can defend against you know or we pull out the slingshot well and that's the scary part too is it could you know the thing the fact of the matter is yes like as an end user you could say oh it's the it's the equipment manufacturer's liability but at the end of the day if they the if the company's currently suing you you're going to have to deal with that and then try to go after the equipment manufacturer who at that time could have already been gone after by this [ __ ] company as well and there might not be anything to go after there and by the way that was your equipment that you're using that you now no longer can use because it's in violation so now you have to go get different equipment that wasn't in violation and the only people that are going to probably have that is this giant group because they own all the patents you got remember they're process patents they're not design patents again so that defense that we're talking about that's that it's not real so in their mind the only way to process cannabis under one of their process patents is with them if you're against them you're against them period you can't okay yeah don't use that equipment and keep processing right who car like you're still [ __ ] it's you're screwed unless you join us you're screwed that's their model I just like like like cat said I don't understand how this can't be fall under like a racketeering type why isn't Lobby bribery because it's uh legal it's all in the legal yeah I mean it starts with the US PTO and and govern my my dad's an engineer by trade he he was one of the first guys to really get this through to me he said when he started his engineering career back in the late 60s he would have he would have died to have a job at the USPTO that was like you made it as a as an electrical or mechanical engineer you got to look at designs and Innovation all day that was a great job he said now it's entry level now it's a it's a job out of school so you got a lot of people that are processing this information that don't necessarily they may have the book smarts I'm not saying that they have the educ but they don't necessarily have the application to it they haven't been out in the world processing or or working in the fields that they're judging right now and so that's where we're seeing these weak patents come out I I believe compound that with the general situation of our government and its funding and the the apathy of the people working there the type of people that choose to go work at the government uh and the sheer volume of patents that are coming in compound all those things together and of course it's broken like every other three-letter agency it's all broken four-letter that's a four-letter one o well and and what and what you showed us or what your company showed us by by fighting it and challenging it is there is weakness in the patents there is and and like I say you lost by a split decision in a sense I mean obviously 600,000 is a [ __ ] loss no matter how you look at it but but but there was winds on that side where you showed that there's chinks in the armor that that like you said there's patents getting through that shouldn't get through there's [ __ ] being patented that's [ __ ] you know obnoxious is and even the delay even the time the court cases take is a win in a lot of ways yeah is there like a there's got to be like a billionaire Coalition working against this right because so the group we're talking about right now we're VC funded right there there's no there's no mystery to it you can look it up you can find out where the funding came from it was the same funding that funded a lot of the early cannabis in Colorado too right so we we can talk about the relationships there start digging into the connections the top end connections on Jean poool it's deep in very it ties right back to a bunch of the characters you already hate in the industry a little bit of Silicon Valley sprinkled in if you really dig deep I mean it's it's it's well organized well funded groups that understand what they're doing these things come in waves okay so we saw the early waves right we're not talking about title waves we're not talking about tsunamis yet but they come in wav so so the next round um still in the manufacturing Community mainly was weird the second round which is this is all cold ethanol processing I'm talking about now four companies listed four manufacturers listed one of them was just a reseller these are all names you guys would recogn recognize I can't say them but they're all names you'll recognize one was a reseller that's it they didn't they didn't design or do anything they were distributor one was uh absolutely a a a high-end quality company that we all know very well it's going to be fun I'm going to write down who I think they are and we're going to check later and then there was a random formulator just a random formulator and it's almost like they're just testing that water right there let me see what I can get CBD company wasn't a THC company but it was an ethanol run and they just had one form in there you look at that list and you say okay I understand this one I get this one this this one has sold some equipment there's there's some money to be made there but then you see this one formulator down there and you're like what are you doing here right and it's all about prent and as soon as this wave passes which it's about it's about 60% through now we got a couple settlements in this round which is tough but it it is what it is I mean you got to deal with it now um we got one case I believe dismissed there was a couple fuckus that flew back and forth which is good too um next wave is coming it's going to be more than four five manufacturers and one formulator so now we're we're sitting there and we're we're watching we're monitoring and seeing who's next I got one legal website I check every morning right I know the names put them all in there and it shows me if anything was filed the day before that's it and we got to wait see what's next um for right now the thread on the Forum is a good place for information um I even linked I link doc um but The Forum hopefully somebody has something say you know the title of it off the top of your head we're going to put it we're going to put the URL hydrocarbon has a problem hydrocarbon has a patent problem hydrocarbon has a patent problem if you look up patent problem uh you're going to find it we're going to pin it to the top I can get that done today and then um between now between now and the 1 of 2024 we're going to have a website we're going to have something where people can can log in can get more information we going to get organized we uh we talked to a decent amount of the names that were here today and last night that would be good voices for it and they're 100% on board so yeah like full to the point of potentially like a little documentary something visual so that this thing could potentially go viral out to other people that we wouldn't normally impact so that it then could circle around to other people that it well I I think the public understanding or even the industry understanding that this is not just hydrocarbon equipment um this company is a massive company that's going after like I said earlier ethanol equipment or process um and well there's an underlying flaw in our free market capitalism right here where these predatory corporations can come in and stifle growth and creativity because they can just beat you in court over some [ __ ] that's a huge issue that's a much broad that's why I meant like there's got to be some billionaire Co Coalition because there's lots of guys that would love for this to not be the case so that they can more freely you know do whatever and this could be a serious issue if you want a bunch of compan if you're big money so it seems like there would be because the way to fight it in bigger sense would be to have this Collective lawyers that are going and they all they do is crack all these patents and they're just actively scouting hey are you in some industry where there's [ __ ] patents tell us why explain to us in detail great we'll help you pass that billboard on the way exactly that's like a whole is they're actively getting patents and filing because they're on the other side they've got a coalition of lawyers that are funded to go the opposite direction with this yeah it'll be [ __ ] next year yeah and and you know how you keep burdening down this whole system to beat it is you just start filing more and more [ __ ] patents as fast as you can to extraction crystall spin-off that's in there right oh yeah go look at the deck look at the pie chart that's that's just the smallest little bit of the beginning so I got some good news though all right I got good news and part of the good news is that we we know what we need and and you were mentioning this earlier we need expert Witnesses we need people that know what they were they're talking about that have been doing it forever that really were the true innovators in the space we need more open- Source material we need more spots like future we need more information there we need more prior art that we can reference can you speak to prior art a bit like it h like I got a bunch of pictures that are metad dat from you know well before on the ethanol extraction the cette we were doing that and we were the first ones to talk about it too I have you know post stated when we put it up and started talking about it how where does that I've read icy mag more in the last two years than I did point to you're digging through that you're looking for right especially through like the archive but what people don't understand about that my I've been talking about patents for a while and and the most common response I get is now look at this post this post it's from 2014 and I'm like yeah that's that's cool bro it's going to cost you $150,000 to hold that phone up in court that's what it costs basically unless you're the it's not that you don't have it it's that it cost you that much moneyer witness referencing priority and that's that's where it's important that's that's where that that that blend comes together cost you or might earn you 100 Grand whichever yeah you can you can make money too I mean expert Witnesses I mean we use some very talented people some people that their time is very expensive and it's it's almost uh it's almost frustrating watching the lawyers take talk to the witnesses too because you're like you know what [ __ ] you yeah oh yeah he did it you didn't you know and they're just trying to tie him up in circles and that and that's the game there but the more information we can share the more prior art that we can catalog right let's let's put it in one spot let's let's give you get a letter in okay I'm going to send you to this website I'm going to show you what was out there before any of these patents were awarded this is what I'm going to fight with this is the fuel for art defense this is what I have these are the witnesses that we know um going forward you know Innovation is important it deserves to be monetized I'm not saying that that we we belong in a non-monetized world but we got to figure out a way to put this kind of innovation out to the masses let people monetize it let them make their money um but it's going to open up over time and we got to get to that Gap when these patents expire well I think where does the mation end or monetization end and I think that needs to be better defined so does it end at I sell it to this guy and then he makes the machines and makes money off the machines okay it's done or does it end at you know every Tom Dick and Harry that bought every time every time I every time I hit a vape card I got to pay a ni or like you said flip that grand use my [ __ ] seat Bel today like how who do I owe and and it's when does it end and I think outlining that and making that you know just and fair and right and whatever um is so crucial as a [ __ ] society as a country um that's got to get figured out because where does that monetization end of course Innovation should be paid for you know you you should be paid for your work but but when does that end and it shouldn't just be 17 years godone yeah it's like it's this underlying ethical question of do patents even work can they even work because it's like you should make the money you had the idea and you put it into work and you're making money great but there I I honestly believe the only way that it maybe even works is there's where it ends nobody can use that against you but you can't really stop other people from using it you can try we have all the laws in the world and China will rip your [ __ ] straight off and sell it on the internet so I mean yeah and better maybe soell though yeah so it's this weird you know ethical question you have to have and can we even enforce it can you is there such like if it's an unenforceable law is it one that we should have I I I think it starts with us talking about it I think today's today's a great step I think uh you know recognizing the challenges that are in front of us understanding the risk to the industry and and really starting the conversation and and organizing our self in a way where I don't care who gets a letter you know we get we get access to the same tools people have the the proper understanding of what they're about to go through and then we use some collective muscle right we built this together we're not giving it away to the lawyers we're not going to do it we can't do it you know it's it's just not fair well not to their lawyers no matter what the underlying thing is the lawyers are going to win they always win one of them both of them however so but our defense is to not to lose less or to not lose as hard as to fund some of our own lawyers to start working on this right because that we can start mounting a defense against it collectively and that's I think the probably the primary uh action of the pwo would be to organize some sort of collective legal fund it's a big ask we get to get it done but that's that's the kind of action that's the patent Warfare office yeah you heard it here first patent Warfare has to contract out some lawyers to start working on this [ __ ] I get upset when when positions are lost to Legal bills yeah you know and and when you look at the kind of expense you know we're we're a healthy company but you know 6 700,000 is a lot of cash it's a lot of cash especially when it's not in your pocket anymore yeah and and what do we do with that cash you know I I mean I drive it Tacoma but I don't pay your employees pay our employees as as that funnel comes down and and you lose those revenues it does impact the industry it impacts the jobs it impacts families and and people that are you know help us build our our company from day one suck as a good you know owner operator it impacted your salary first right because you need all these other people working or there's no salary for anybody so you got you're the first one to take a cut as a business owner first second and third people are quick to forget that yeah you made all the sacrifice in and out for the purposes of this conversation and getting it out there people can go to The Forum This Thread by the time this is released this thread will be pinned to the top we'll have a website address where people can get more information and we're going to get really organized about um getting some muscle getting a little war chest of our own figuring that out but also developing a website that has prior art has a catalog has some ways that other people have won what do you do if you get the letter we're going to start putting that together we're going to get it figured out we're g to get it figured out all right uh Sean you've been ringing this Bell for a long time and I'm really excited that we finally heard it thank you for answering appreciate you cat always great convers uh don thank you education medication all at finest than for the good life [Music] game

2023-12-19 08:00

Other news