David Harmon: Hi, I’m David Harmon.
Mariya Gonor: And I’m Mariya Gonor.
David Harmon: And we are the Employment Strategists. Today we have a unique episode, Beyond the Menu, serving employment strategies for the restaurant industry. We’re thrilled to have our partner, Danielle DeFilippis, with us for this episode.
Danielle DeFilippis: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Mariya Gonor: Well, we’re so excited to have you. And it truly is a unique episode because we have a guest and we’re going to solely focus on the restaurant industry today and employment issues as well as IP issues that arise within that industry.
David Harmon: Okay, Danielle, maybe you can tell us a little bit about your practice.
Danielle DeFilippis: Sure. So, I am the co-chair of our firm’s intellectual property group, and what does intellectual property encompass? That would be any invention of the mind. So, we’re talking about trademarks, it could be copyrights, patents, but particularly for today’s episode, will focus on trade secrets, which is also a subset of intellectual property and very important for the food, beverage, and hospitality industry.
Mariya Gonor: And Danielle, you have specific experience right where you represent a lot of clients who are in the food and beverage industry.
Danielle DeFilippis: I do. I’ve enjoyed working with the food industry for a number of years now. I actually have food is a big part of my background. My father worked for a sales and marketing company his entire career, so I would see brands coming in and out of my house. I learned about product placement and where you want it to be on the shelf and how to promote your brand. And I truly understood how important and valuable these brand assets are. And so now I get to help clients protect them.
Mariya Gonor: And what actually inspired this episode is our attendance at FAB last year. Actually, you were a speaker.
Danielle DeFilippis: That’s right. FAB is a workshop in Charleston, South Carolina. focused on women in food, beverage, and hospitality. Mariya, you joined me there last year.
Mariya Gonor: Oh, I loved it.
Danielle DeFilippis: We had a great time. It was inspiring but also eye-opening. You know, I was able to speak with women about their journeys in the industry and learn what they really needed help with.
David Harmon: What does FAB stand for?
Danielle DeFilippis: Females in business.
David Harmon: Oh.
Mariya Gonor: So, I got to tell you, obviously, in our professions, we attend a number of workshops, conferences, trade shows, what have you. But the atmosphere at FAB was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in any trade workshop. Wouldn’t you agree?
Danielle DeFilippis: I agree. 100%. It’s a very unique opportunity to connect and really learn about other women who have really pioneered in the industry and really taken their brands to the next level. A lot of interesting things came out of that, that workshop. Of course, IP protection comes up, and I suspect we’ll be talking about that a little bit later. But we really got to dive into each woman’s experience, their business assets that they’re trying to protect, such as recipes, formulas, designs, and things of that nature. The food industry itself is very unique and has its own challenges. So FAB was an opportunity to really do a deep dive into the challenges facing our industry and how we can tackle some of these issues.
David Harmon: You were a panelist at that workshop?
Danielle DeFilippis: I was, I actually participated in a couple of different experiences. One was coffee with a speaker, which was great because I got to meet one on one with a female entrepreneur and we talked about their business and what was unique or specific to their work. Another opportunity I had was a small group session where we spoke and dove into trademark protection and how to protect your brand at the federal registration level. The third experience I had was another group session. Whereby we spoke specifically about trade secret protection and how to do that through your contractual relationships.
David Harmon: Really sounds like you’re the go to for these sorts of issues.
Mariya Gonor: Oh yeah, and my takeaway from watching all of those was that it was so interactive. It wasn’t just you speaking at the guests, right, as frequently happens, but instead, it was very interactive. The questions were very thought-out. And I thought to myself that these questions probably apply to many different businesses in the food and beverage industry. And a lot of them touched on employment issues, so that’s how we conceived this episode, and that’s why we’re here today.
David Harmon: Right, so one of the initial questions that we have when, let’s say, hiring a chef Who owns the menu? How do we deal with that?
Danielle DeFilippis: Sure, and a lot of these things will be on a case-by-case basis, but as far as ownership of intellectual property. I touched a little bit upon the types of intellectual property protection that exists. So, say for example the restaurant has a trademark registration for its name or for a logo. You know, that’s going to be owned by the restaurant. If they say, have a design or images on their website that they use, photographs that they’ve taken. That might be copyright protection, but as far as other items, such as say the recipes or the formulas, if a chef comes in, who owns that? Well, that’s really, that could be determined at the outset, at the time of hiring, or it could be something that’s contractually agreed upon through negotiation. So, say, for example, a chef comes in and says, well, I’ve had this particular recipe, and I want to maintain the ownership of it and be able to use it if we part ways. Okay, perhaps that’s something you negotiate in your contract, but typically if you are hiring somebody to work in your business or at your restaurant and they fall under the definition of an employee, typically what they create during that time period is a work for hire and owned by the company itself.
David Harmon: So, it sounds to me as if there are possibly different levels of engagement under contracts for different types of employees as there are in most businesses. Offer letters versus employment agreement, confidentiality versus work made for hire. Can you speak to that?
Danielle DeFilippis: Sure. There are several different ways you can protect these, you know, we call them trade secrets, but really, you know, your business assets, your recipes, or your formulas. Now, does everybody you employ need to have, you know, a written employment agreement? Maybe not. But depending on the relationship that you have, you should give some serious thought as to whether there should be a contract in place. Like, say, for example, you’re going to meet with a potential company that’s going to manufacture your product and you want to share pieces of your recipe because you want to know if they have the capability to make the product. You might want to have them sign a non-disclosure agreement, something that says I’m going to be disclosing pieces of my, my business, essentially confidential information that we maintain as secret. And we want to make sure that you don’t take it and use it with somebody else, a competitor.
Mariya Gonor: And if you don’t get that document signed, what’s the risk?
Danielle DeFilippis: Sure, the risk is that they may use it. They may, you know, move forward with somebody else using a similar recipe. Unless it’s clear that you’re providing a trade secret and you can try to seek some recourse under the law, it could just be considered an idea that’s free for the taking.
Mariya Gonor: So, in law school, our professor, Paula Francesi, claimed that her father, who was a chef at a restaurant, invented vodka sauce. So, let’s say he was just a chef, never had an employment agreement, and invented that vodka sauce. Who owns it?
Danielle DeFilippis: That’s funny. You know, I don’t remember, um, Professor Ranchesi talking about a vodka sauce, but now I’m interested. Uh, so here’s the thing with recipes, for example if they’re a basic, you know, it could be the best chicken parm, it could be the best vodka sauce that you’ve ever tasted. But if it’s Simply, you know, a compilation of your basic ingredients or your directions, and even if you’ve reduced it to writing, it may not be entitled, say, to copyright protection or something like that, or a patent protection. So, the way to protect it is to treat it as a trade secret. How do you do that? Well, control the dissemination of it. If you think there’s something unique and specific about your recipe that you don’t want anybody else to incorporate, Then treat it as a trade secret. Control who has access to it. Make sure only the ones who need to know have access to that particular recipe. Perhaps her father created part of it on his own, that he then never shared with anyone in his restaurant, and said, okay, now you can mix it together, but you’ll never know my proprietary spice packet. So, control that, keep it under wraps if you can, and make sure only those who need to know have access.
David Harmon: So, I’m thinking about work made for hire and inventions and proprietary agreements that typically are given out by employers. So, as an employee coming into a restaurant with a recipe or some idea about a certain dish, that’s possibly something that they can schedule. As an exclusion from that protection? Is that something that is typically done?
Danielle DeFilippis: I don’t see why not. I think if you are coming in, and say you’re known for that. Say the restaurant, I would like to hire this particular person because I like that they have this expertise in a particular method or they’ve incorporated certain elements into their cuisine. They can certainly negotiate that and have some agreement whereby if this, you know, employee decides they want to, say, open their own shop or go somewhere else that they’re entitled to use this particular information again.
Mariya Gonor: So, what would be a good practice in terms of documents to have? Write an employment agreement for your high-level, high-contributing employees, right? Should we put the work-made-for-hire language in the employee handbook?
Danielle DeFilippis: I think so. I think, you know, of course, we’re lawyers, so we love to write these documents and, you know, of course, it’s, again, a case-by-case basis, and we don’t want to overpaper everybody who’s coming in the door, but if you do have a handbook, that’s a nice, easy way to have someone sign off on, say, an inventions agreement or something that shows the ownership of the IP.
Mariya Gonor: I’m sorry, Danielle, you said if. David, do we have comment about if you have a handbook?
Danielle DeFilippis: Ah!
David Harmon: There’s no if in handbooks.
Mariya Gonor: That’s right. In your handbook. because everybody now has a handbook. If you listen to one of our episodes, you know it’s a must.
Danielle DeFilippis: I forgot who I was talking to.
David Harmon: And as we recently said, you need to update the handbook and keep it current.
Danielle DeFilippis: My apologies. When the next wave, when you update your employee handbook, it might be worth considering having an IP ownership and invention agreement in there.
David Harmon: Well, I think that the best way to do that is to have it dovetail with a separate agreement that’s signed by the individual, you know, a receipt and acknowledgment of the handbook. And make sure that the person has read through it. But to use for enforceability’s sake, to have a separate agreement that binds that person contractually.
Mariya Gonor: So, in addition, in addition to chefs, who else should we consider making sure has signed some kind of invention agreement or employment agreement?
Danielle DeFilippis: Sure. I mean, I would say whoever may have access to the sensitive information and I’ve been speaking so far about recipes and formulas, but let’s not forget there are other trade secrets a restaurant may have.
Mariya Gonor: Sure.
Danielle DeFilippis: There may be customer lists. There may be vendor lists, particular relationships that are valuable. That may not be commonly known outside of your business there. If it has economic value to you it could be considered a trade secret under the law. So be mindful of who may have access to that information. Maybe it’s somebody who works in your billing department or someone who’s running a personnel. Be mindful of who has access to what type of information and if it is something that you want to keep as a trade secret, consider have them sign it.
David Harmon: You just said something about customers, and I find that an interesting point because how can you restrict customers from going from one restaurant to another?
Danielle DeFilippis: Sure.
David Harmon: What does that implicate? And when you talk about customers.
Danielle DeFilippis: Yeah, I don’t think it’s more, it’s about restricting customers from going to a particular location, but it’s just if you’ve compiled information, say, on a particular subset of customers that you, you know, do business with on a regular basis, or maybe it’s a very highly sensitive proprietary vendor list that you’ve compiled because you know of their particular expertise and you may not want your competitor To run and get that. You know, I try to get that same vendor to do the work for them. These are types of things that you can keep secret. You wouldn’t necessarily stop somebody from doing that independently, but if you compiled this list over time to create, you know, all of these different aspects of your business, and then you had an employee just download it. You know, everybody you use to make your business so unique and special and take it with them. You know, that’s, that has economic value.
David Harmon: So, I guess it’s the definition of a trade secret within this industry, which can vary from industry to industry.
Danielle DeFilippis: Absolutely.
Mariya Gonor: So, this is all very good and helpful, but what about those employers or employees who are hesitant to sign an actual employment agreement, right? Is there anything else other than the handbook, which people may claim they don’t read, that could serve to outline the rights and responsibilities of the parties?
Danielle DeFilippis: Sure. I mean, there are certainly laws that protect misappropriation of trade secrets, so [00:12:00] you wouldn’t be entirely without recourse. Having a contract-related claim would certainly be nice and be helpful, but it, as long as you’re doing and taking the steps we talked about to protect trade secrets and providing that level of education, because remember, too, part of it can be training your employees as to What you’re you treat as confidential information is and trade secret information so that they’re aware that if they leave that you might seek some recourse for their misappropriation of that information. But of course, it’s helpful to have these provisions in your contractual relationships, and it’s not just the employee employer relationship. We’re also talking about vendors. You have a collaboration partner. Say you’re doing some type of a collaboration with another brand, making sure it’s clearly spelled out whose IP belongs to who. And if you create a collaboration work or something together in connection with the collaboration, how will that be used? Will it only be used for the collaboration purpose? Would each have rights afterwards? These types of things relating to your IP and information are important to spell out in these relationships. So [00:13:00] there’s no ambiguity after.
Mariya Gonor: And it sounds like some of this stuff goes beyond the simple NDA, right?
Danielle DeFilippis: Sure, absolutely. The NDA is certainly a great first step, but I think if you do ultimately move on to a relationship, a, you know, a venture together, or some type of collaboration that you do have a more robust contract that really outlines these terms.
David Harmon: So, I think within the food industry, what I’m gleaning from what you’ve been saying is that within the food industry, there are, you know, so many different aspects of the food industry. It’s not just restaurants. It goes beyond that. It’s all the vendors, the suppliers, the marketers, etc. And all of the brands that comprise the food industry. So, the different types of agreements that are going to be required will vary and need to be customized.
Danielle DeFilippis: That’s right. And I think you need to pay particular attention as to the differences in those relationships. Because what you may have with, say, an employee might be different than the type of provision you have with an outside designer. Maybe a designer has a license to use certain aspects of the IP, say, in their marketing, but you retain the ownership. There are definitely different things you can consider depending on the relationship. So, David, yes, you’re 100 percent right. There will be variations. But overall, the same theme is make sure everybody’s aware of who owns what IP and how you can protect it.
David Harmon: So, for an individual going into seeking employment within the different areas in the food industry, they should be aware or try to educate themselves as to what is the norm, what is the practice, and what they can expect to be presented with.
Mariya Gonor: And also what they want, right? Like if you have some bargaining power and you want some specific. So, if you’re going to be making accommodations for your own inventions, you wanna, that may be a hard line for you.
David Harmon: Yeah, you do want to protect yourself going in, just as that’s the case in other industries as well.
Danielle DeFilippis: Sure, and just making sure there isn’t an overreach by the prospective employer. You know, having somebody look at or, you know, pay close attention as to what they’re handing you to sign. You know, make sure that that’s fair and that it’s appropriate for the circumstances. Because, like I said, if you’re not somebody who’s going to have You know, access to certain information, you know, maybe it’s not appropriate for you to sign a very strict or comprehensive agreement that, you know, could be a trap leader. You know, just be mindful of certain things like that.
David Harmon: Well, Mariya and I know that when it comes to negotiating these on behalf of employees, many times they really don’t have the choice.
Mariya Gonor: Right. A lot of the time it’s presented as just simply non-negotiable. But then on the employee side, to protect yourself, you’ve got to review it, understand it, maybe speak to an attorney. Because, exactly what you said, Danielle, your rights are, your intellectual property rights may be affected.
David Harmon: So, any individual considering employment with any particular establishment should be aware that the establishment more than likely has attorneys on the other side who have prepared agreements. And so those agreements have been vetted already, so that would be in the best interest of those individuals to do the same as best they can.
Danielle DeFilippis: Yeah, I think that’s right. I think everybody should do what they can to protect their own interest to the extent they have some ability to negotiate in their favor great. We recognize, of course, not everyone’s gonna have that bargaining power. There’s gonna be situations. I see it a lot with, you [00:16:00] know, say, co packers or distributors. Sometimes they have forms that they use, and there’s very little flexibility on the side of the of the brand owner. So, you do what you can maybe pick your battles a little bit, but, you know, fight for what is most important to you and for your longevity as a brand.
Mariya Gonor: I guess another thing that we wanted to stress The size of the employer doesn’t matter, right? I think a lot of small employees, employers, sorry, fall into the trap of thinking, “Oh, I’m just, you know, a sole proprietor”, or “I don’t have a whole lot of money coming in.” But if you have something that is protectable, you should take the steps to protect it.
Danielle DeFilippis: 100%, and I think it’s a misconception that you need like a 20-page document to accomplish this. This does not need to be. Something that is a great expense. What I think it is, it’s bang for your buck, right? Because this is your core asset. This is something you’ve worked so hard to develop. Take the steps to protect it, and it does not have to be overly exhaustive, but enough that gives you the protection that you know you’ll be able to protect the goodwill that you’ve developed in your brand or in your formula, in your recipe. Because even if you might be a small business, it’s still yours, and it’s still important. And in this industry, you know, there’s a lot of Passion and love and people are really attached to their brands and they’re attached to what they’ve developed because it’s important So this is a step that should be taken and again It does not need to be overly exhaustive. But speak with the right folks the right attorneys to help you craft something that makes sense for your business.
David Harmon: So be strategic in customizing your documents
Danielle DeFilippis: That’s right.
Mariya Gonor: And I guess the other category of individuals who might be involved in the food and beverage that we haven’t covered yet are the social media influencers, right? Social media personalities. Is there others, any specific agreements that the restaurants should be aware of if they are doing any kind of collaboration with social media?
Danielle DeFilippis: Sure, that’s a whole other aspect, of IP to talk about because there’s a lot that can be involved with social media, including name, image, and likeness rights and who, what type of personality is, is speaking. Are they using their own social media? Are they using the brand’s social media? [00:18:00] There’s certainly influencer agreements that can be done and those are specific and have their own set of terms. So yeah, that’s certainly another consideration and a whole other set of ideas and thoughts that would go into that.
Mariya Gonor: So, what would you say the top three are? Considerations in connection with such collaborations?
Danielle DeFilippis: I mean, I would say, of course, ownership, who owns what IP and how that can be used. So how can it be shared, um, making sure your brand is used in the way that you want so that you have some control over it. Because especially with trademarks, logos, and designs, I mean, the keeping the protection as a trademark protection means you’re actually enforcing, your rights to it and making sure people who you’re licensing it to are using it in the way that you want and the way that is what you’ve envisioned. So, making sure that there’s guidelines for that and how the IP is being used and where it’s going to be shared. And making sure you have the rights. So, certainly consider, you know, how can you use their content? Can you share it? What platforms is this information going to be on? And making sure you comply with the terms and conditions of those platforms. So those are, I think, some important takeaways.
Mariya Gonor: Well, we exclusively operate on Myspace, right? We don’t advertise anywhere other than Myspace anymore. Right, David?
David Harmon: Whatever space is available to us, Mariya. So, Danielle, I believe there’s a case that involved cookies and documents. Can you expand on that?
Danielle DeFilippis: And by cookies, we’re talking about the dessert, right?
David Harmon: Absolutely.
Danielle DeFilippis: Yes, there was a recent, fairly recent case, it has now resolved, but involving two really well-known cookie brands, Crumble and Dirty Dough. They’ve been in, they were in a battle for, for quite some time, but the interesting part of that case, it involved Not just, you know, allegations of trademark and trade dress infringement based on rumbles, logos, and packaging, but they also alleged misappropriation of trade secrets by a former employee who left and then later invested in, um, Dirty Dough. So, the court was asked to determine early at a preliminary injunction stage, you know, whether you know, there were violations of, or likelihood of success and violations of stealing trade secret information from the company.
Mariya Gonor: And what was the alleged trade secret?
Danielle DeFilippis: The allegations are that the employee had downloaded before he left several documents that included proprietary information, recipes, and, and processes for making the cookies.
David Harmon: You know, in our practice, we become aware of that type of act being committed more often than you would think. With agreements in place, with training, people just step outside the line and download because they think they’re not going to get caught.
Danielle DeFilippis: And, you know, that’s a really important point you make, David, is that, you know, these are not foolproof, right? I mean, you, you have to hope that people will abide by, you know, the, the terms of the agreements that you put in. But like you said, you, you can have all of these measures in place and still have a situation in which, you know, somebody may have, you know, misused or, or taken. Your IP. So, we highly recommend, of course, having documents in place to protect the IP. We think it gives you the best opportunity should something like this happen. But, you know, there are situations in which, you know, there are bad actors that may, you know, try to benefit from your goodwill.
Mariya Gonor: But then having those documents helps you in the litigation, right? Because then that’s one thing that sort of no longer is in dispute because it’s documentary and it’s signed and it exists.
Danielle DeFilippis: That’s right.
David Harmon: I think what you’re saying also is that the documents are only as good as the people who sign them. Right?
Danielle DeFilippis: Yeah. I think that’s true.
Mariya Gonor: Well, hopefully better, frankly.
David Harmon: Well, if we draft them, they’re better.
Mariya Gonor: So, we’ve covered some of the protectable interests that we’ve discussed, right? Is there anything else a restaurant owner should think about in protectable interest that exists?
Danielle DeFilippis: Sure, we spend a lot of time on trade secrets and protecting that through your, your contracts, but be mindful too of, you know, the other forms of protection I alluded to earlier your trademark, so your names, any logos that you may use that identify your brand, you know, as a source and identify you as a source of that, of that product or service to file or seek a federal trademark protection. There also can be copyright protection as we discussed for, say, a cookbook or the expression of an idea, a photograph maybe that you’ve taken, a blog post perhaps, or website content, consider copyright protection for that. There is also what we call trade dress protection, which is very similar to, to a trademark protection, but it covers the look and feel of something. So, what does that mean? Maybe the product design or configuration of packaging, the actual label of a particular product. It can also be décor. So, in the restaurant setting the décor of your restaurant could be source-identifying.
Mariya Gonor: Can you give us an example of like, trade drafts for décor?
Danielle DeFilippis: Well, there’s actually a very well-known, Supreme Court case that, uh, discussed this issue called Two Pesos vs. Taco Cabana. And in which case there was an argument that the décor itself, this Mexican-themed décor, was source-identifying for this restaurant. And they were able to obtain protection for that design.
Mariya Gonor: Okay. So. Let’s assume I am a restaurant owner. I decided that I want to open a brand-new restaurant of very unique Ukrainian cuisine. What is my first step?
Danielle DeFilippis: Sure. Well, I think the first step in any process if you’re, you know, starting a new business or launching a new brand is to make sure that it’s clear to use. If you’re developing a particular name for a product or a service, because you know, if, if the last thing you wanna do is spend, um, time and money developing and promoting a particular name or brand in a geographic area, only to find out that somebody already has a registered trademark for it or some rights to it before you did, and then you’d have to rebrand.
Mariya Gonor: So a food truck. Selling pierogis and calling myself Veselka may not be the best move for me?
Danielle DeFilippis: I would be a little bit careful with that.
Mariya Gonor: Got it. Okay, I will rename. Next, is there anything, when you see owners doing DIY registrations or intellectual protections, what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see?
Danielle DeFilippis: Under the trademark laws, a foreign company does need a U. S. attorney to file their, their trademarks, but here in the U. S., you can file your own trademark application, and people do. Oftentimes, we’ll be asked to come in if there’s, uh, you know, a rejection, because perhaps they filed under the wrong class, or maybe they didn’t do this clearance, and there’s a likelihood of confusion, uh, rejection. It’s going to be several months before you find out. Uh, the trademark office right now is, is, is backlogged. I mean, they’re, they’re taking at least eight months. to review new applications. So at that point, you could be spending money on signage, on, you know, a collateral, spending a great deal of money promoting your new brand, and you may not Be free to use it. So I think you may feel like you’re saving money in the first step by doing it yourself. But if you haven’t gone through that clearance step or making sure this is done correctly, that could be a big issue down the road and you may not find out for some time.
Mariya Gonor: Other than the clearance issue, what’s another sort of common pitfall?
Danielle DeFilippis: Sure. Something I see frequently when I’m speaking with or talking to new brands is that they may select a name that is merely descriptive of the goods or the services that they’re offering. And oftentimes they’ll say, well, I want everyone to know what it is. And I have to counsel them that, you know, the best trademarks, the most distinctive that become source identifying are ones that do not give a sense of what the product or service is. You can use a descriptive term in your branding, and obviously you want to at some point say what the product or service is, but you have to pick a distinctive name. So sometimes people will register or seek to register a name that ultimately gets refused because it’s merely descriptive. So that’s one thing we do when we do an intake. We’ll have somebody, a brand come in and we’ll say, you know, what do you, you know, we’ll counsel on, you know, the, the strongest types of trademarks and what aren’t necessarily protectable and we have that discussion at intake.
David Harmon: Is there anything as far as proprietary information that is a problem if they’re taking something off the internet or otherwise that belongs to someone else?
Danielle DeFilippis: Sure. I mean, we’ve just talked about this today, right, about how you want to protect your own IP. Well, so would others. So, you have to be mindful that there may be folks out there that have. proprietary rights to certain names or certain content or images. And just because it’s on the Internet doesn’t mean it’s free for the taking. I think most of us, you know, understand that now in this day and age. But there may also be restrictions on it, too. You need to look at terms and conditions of use. Even if you know, purchase a license to a particular image. What does the license cover? Does it cover unlimited use? Is it exclusive use? Do you have the right to then use it on a certain number of packaging? You know, you have to be mindful of these terms and also the proprietary rights of others because, you know, the last thing you want is to get a cease-and-desist letter off of somebody else’s content.
David Harmon: So, one other question is, what happens when you are confronted with a DIY situation with New Ventures? How much of a cleanup on aisle 5 do you have to do?
Danielle DeFilippis: Yeah, I mean It depends on the on the circumstances. Hopefully we can fix it. Some things maybe you can and you have to start over, but you know, to the extent you can respond to the trademark office with argument or work out, say, a coexistence with somebody that may have a similar name and you weren’t aware of. You know, we certainly tried to do resolutions in that way with copyrights. It’s, you know, it can be tricky depending on what they’re seeking, but we try to negotiate resolutions or maybe retroactive licenses. There’s things that can be done. So if you get a demand letter or you, you know, you’re faced with something like that, you know, don’t panic, you know, call an attorney, of course, have them look at it and see whether there’s some validity to the claims and, you know, ideally they’ll be able to help negotiate a resolution.
David Harmon: Mariya, I think you and I encounter quite often, I think most attorneys do when clients come to see us and they bring their own. version of what they think is an appropriate offer letter or employment.
Mariya Gonor: The DIY document.
David Harmon: The DIY documents.
Mariya Gonor: Gone horribly, horribly wrong.
David Harmon: Right, and that’s where the problems come up. So sometimes you get ahead of it by consulting counsel, or you have to fix it after the fact.
Danielle DeFilippis: That’s right. I mean, you know, we’re here to help. And I think it’s, you know, a common misconception that lawyers are just going to ruin the relationship or over-lawyer it so the deal doesn’t get done. You know, we want to see Brand succeed, but One of the best parts of this job is seeing, you know, new products that I helped be on the shelf and being able to try them. I mean, that’s what we love. So, you know, we’re here to help. We want your brand to succeed and, you know, have longevity. So, you know, if we can help you do that in an efficient way, let’s sit down and talk about what makes sense. You know, maybe we don’t have to do everything now. Let’s take the first step and get your NDA done or let’s get, you know, your trademark filed. And then in the next six months, we’ll try to tackle the next step. So, coming up with an organized plan and a budget for it in the long run can really help.
Mariya Gonor: That makes a lot of sense. All right, well, as always, we end our episodes with some strategies. The strategies for an employer and a strategy for an employee. So, would you like to kick us off with an employer strategy?
Danielle DeFilippis: Yeah, I think take stock of what you have currently. If I could say, if anybody’s listening to this, think for a second, do you have that handbook? I hope you do. If you’ve listened to this before, do you have the right IP language in that? Have you registered your trademark? Think about what you currently have and whether it makes sense to do a deeper dive into what the next step should be. And as far as your asset protection.
Mariya Gonor: Okay. And what about,
David Harmon: for employees?
Mariya Gonor: for the employees? Yes.
Danielle DeFilippis: I think that’s the same making, seeing if you are moving on to the next step if you’re going to be. You know, pursuing a new relationship. Do you have anything that you need to say is mine? And I want to protect, are you receiving a document that you may not be entirely comfortable with? Talk to somebody about it, be prepared to negotiate, even if you don’t have a whole lot of bargaining power.
Mariya Gonor: Absolutely. David, what do we say?
David Harmon: If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Mariya Gonor: If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Danielle DeFilippis: That’s right.
Mariya Gonor: All right. Well, thank you everyone for joining us today. We hope that you found our time together educational and entertaining, but please remember that this is not legal advice and should not be taken as such.
David Harmon: If you would like to continue the discussion, please reach out to us on theemploymentstrategists@norris-law.com.
Mariya Gonor: And we thank Danielle so much for coming and speaking with us today. And if anybody wants to hear more from Danielle, please write in and I’m sure we can arrange that.