Tampa Bay Inventors Council - www.tbic.us Weekly Meetup

Greetings Inventors,

This Wednesday 2/24 TBIC meeting we are going to talk about one of the most important aspects of inventing, protecting your idea from infringement. Joining us are John Siragusa and Ted Olds, of the intellectual property law firm Carlson, Gaskey & Olds. They will speak about their experience protecting a fad product. In 2010 an independent inventor, Choon Ng, invented the Rainbow Loom, a loom for making rubber band bracelets. In 2013 and 2014 the Rainbow Loom was perhaps the hottest toy in the World.

Counterfeits and various types of infringements flooded the US, Europe and Asia. Ted and John headed up the team charged with stopping these actions. They will explain what worked and what did not work to address this problem. Also, they will cover steps that were taken early so that Rainbow Loom had the tools to limit the counterfeits and infringements. Rainbow Loom enjoyed the success every independent inventors dreams about, and this is the story of the headaches that can come with that success, and how to minimize them. Ted and John will join us on zoom starting at 6:15 Eastern time this Wednesday and share their knowledge with you so that you can be better prepared with your innovation.

Ted Olds graduated Michigan State University with a mechanical engineering degree and worked for 5 years as an examiner in the US Patent Office while attending law school at George Washington University. For the past 30 years he has represented big companies and independent inventors protecting their ideas at the Patent Office, IPRs and Courts.

John Siragusa received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Lawrence Technological University and worked in the automotive industry at Holley Automotive and Borg-Warner Automotive while attending Wayne State University Law School. He has worked for the past 20 years preparing and prosecuting US and foreign patents in areas including aerospace, automotive, consumer products and mechanical devices

This Wednesday, they will both join us to share some of their collective knowledge in a virtual meeting that you don’t want to miss! Join our zoom meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89067156180 and learn all you can about protecting your ideas from bad actors. To read a bit more about the Rainbow Loom, check out this link https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/03/25/rainbow-loom-sensation-michigan-company/6859443/

I hope to see you all on Wednesday!

Regards

Wayne Rasanen

P, TBIC