King Patent Law, PLLC

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King Patent Law, PLLC Protecting your ideas, business, and legacy. National patent / intellectual property practice; business & estate planning in IL.

Patents, trademarks, copyright, NDAs, licensing, business formation & contracts, wills, trusts, powers of attorney

09/17/2026

A thin, cheaply-filed provisional patent application can end up costing you far more than it saved, in narrower patent protection later. Here's a real example of how that happens.

Check out this week's longer episode, "Provisional Patent Applications: What They Do and Don't Do, and What "Patent Pending" Really Means" for more details.

Avoid the legal horrors and keep rocking your IP. 💀🎸

Follow for IP education for creators, podcasters, and small business owners.

📰 Sign up for the Avoid the Legal Horrors newsletter: https://kingpatentlaw.com/newsletter/

📅 Ready to protect your brand and business? Book a consultation: https://kingpatentlaw.com/appointments/consultation/
I help creators and small business owners with IP matters nationwide and with contracts in Illinois and Georgia.

on social media (NOT X)

DISCLAIMER: This information is for educational purposes only, is not legal advice, and does not form an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, consult with a licensed attorney. This content contains attorney advertising material. Julie King | King Patent Law, PLLC | 301 N Neil St Ste 400, Champaign IL 61820. Phone number and email address available at kingpatentlaw.com.

09/16/2026

Filing a provisional patent application does not mean your invention is protected. Here's what "patent pending" actually means, and what it doesn't.

Full episode: "Provisional Patent Applications: Temporary Protection or Waste of Money?" at kingpatentlaw.com, or at Avoid the Legal Horrors with Julie King: Patent, Trademark, and Business Strategy on YouTube, or your favorite podcast platform.

Avoid the legal horrors and keep rocking your IP. 💀🎸

📅 Ready to protect your brand and business? Book a consultation: https://kingpatentlaw.com/appointments/consultation/
I help creators and small business owners with IP matters nationwide and with contracts in Illinois.

📰 Sign up for the Avoid the Legal Horrors newsletter at kingpatentlaw.com

on social media (NOT X)

DISCLAIMER: This information is for educational purposes only, is not legal advice, and does not form an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, consult with a licensed attorney. This video contains attorney advertising material. Julie King | King Patent Law, PLLC | 301 N Neil St Ste 400, Champaign IL 61820. Phone number and email address available at kingpatentlaw.com.

09/15/2026

Provisional Patent Applications: What They Do and Don't Do, and What "Patent Pending" Really Means

09/10/2026

Aspirin. Escalator. Thermos. Cellophane.
All brand names once. All lost trademark protection — because the name became the word people use for the entire product category, not just one company's version of it. That's genericide.
Podcasters and creators run into a related version of this problem constantly: naming a show exactly what it's about. "True Crime Weekly." "Ghost Stories." Descriptive names are the hardest to register and the hardest to protect — and it's worth knowing that before you build an audience around one.
Avoid the legal horrors and keep rocking your IP. 💀🎸
📅 Ready to protect your brand and business? Book a consultation: https://kingpatentlaw.com/appointments/consultation/
I help creators and small business owners with IP matters nationwide and with contracts in Illinois.
📰 Sign up for the Avoid the Legal Horrors newsletter at kingpatentlaw.com
on social media (NOT X)
DISCLAIMER: This information is for educational purposes only, is not legal advice, and does not form an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, consult with a licensed attorney. This video contains attorney advertising material. Julie King | King Patent Law, PLLC | 301 N Neil St Ste 400, Champaign IL 61820. Phone number and email address available at kingpatentlaw.com.

09/09/2026

I want to share something from a real trademark search because it shows exactly why AI tools are a starting point, not a finish line.
I was searching a three-letter mark. The actual mark's been changed to protect client confidentiality, but call it GZE. The AI search found marks with similar letter combinations. What it didn't find: marks that sound like GZE out loud, like JEEZY, GEE-ZEE, GIZ, GIZZY. Likelihood of confusion considers how marks sound, not just how they look. The AI was matching letters. It wasn't evaluating pronunciation.
Good trademark attorneys use AI tools. But the results still need someone who knows what a real clearance analysis requires.
Avoid the legal horrors and keep rocking your IP. 💀🎸
📅 Ready to protect your brand and business? Book a consultation: https://kingpatentlaw.com/appointments/consultation/
I help creators and small business owners with IP matters nationwide and with contracts in Illinois.
📰 Sign up for the Avoid the Legal Horrors newsletter at kingpatentlaw.com
on social media (NOT X)
DISCLAIMER: This information is for educational purposes only, is not legal advice, and does not form an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, consult with a licensed attorney. This video contains attorney advertising material. Julie King | King Patent Law, PLLC | 301 N Neil St Ste 400, Champaign IL 61820. Phone number and email address available at kingpatentlaw.com.

09/08/2026

You bought the domain. You registered the LLC. You grabbed the Instagram and TikTok handles. Everything feels locked down.
None of those things tell you whether you're actually safe to use that name as a brand. A domain doesn't check for trademark conflicts. An LLC filing just means no other LLC in your state has that exact name — it has nothing to do with trademark rights. A handle is a platform account, not legal clearance.
The only way to know if you're clear is an actual trademark search — with someone who knows what they're looking for.
Avoid the legal horrors and keep rocking your IP. 💀🎸
📅 Ready to protect your brand and business? Book a consultation: https://kingpatentlaw.com/appointments/consultation/
I help creators and small business owners with IP matters nationwide and with contracts in Illinois and Georgia.
📰 Sign up for the Avoid the Legal Horrors newsletter at kingpatentlaw.com
on social media (NOT X)
DISCLAIMER: This information is for educational purposes only, is not legal advice, and does not form an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, consult with a licensed attorney. This video contains attorney advertising material. Julie King | King Patent Law, PLLC | 301 N Neil St Ste 400, Champaign IL 61820. Phone number and email address available at kingpatentlaw.com.

09/08/2026

You searched Google. You checked the USPTO database for an exact match. Nothing came up, so you figured the name was clear.
Here's the problem: that's not the legal standard. Trademark conflicts don't require identical names; they require a likelihood of confusion. Marks that sound alike, marks in related product categories, and rights that were never registered at all can all create real risk, and none of that shows up in a basic name search.
This week's episode covers what a real trademark clearance search actually checks for, and why the gap between "I searched" and "I'm clear" is where expensive problems start.
Avoid the legal horrors and keep rocking your IP. 💀🎸
📅 Ready to protect your brand and business? Book a consultation: https://kingpatentlaw.com/appointments/consultation/
I help creators and small business owners with IP matters nationwide and with contracts in Illinois and Georgia.
on social media (NOT X)
DISCLAIMER: This information is for educational purposes only, is not legal advice, and does not form an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, consult with a licensed attorney. This video contains attorney advertising material. Julie King | King Patent Law, PLLC | 301 N Neil St Ste 400, Champaign IL 61820. Phone number and email address available at kingpatentlaw.com.

09/03/2026

How many podcasts do you know called "Ghost Stories"? Too many to count.
Podcasters build real audiences around names they can't protect, because they didn't search or file before they launched. You can file a trademark application before you record a single episode. I just did it myself for a new show I have in the works.

DISCLAIMER: This information is for educational purposes only, is not legal advice, and does not form an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, consult with a licensed attorney. This video contains attorney advertising material. Julie King | King Patent Law, PLLC | 301 N Neil St Ste 400, Champaign IL 61820. Phone number and email address available at kingpatentlaw.com.

09/02/2026

A copycat product appeared within months of my client's launch. Not an exact copy, but close enough to matter.
Because the right filing was already in place before launch, we were positioned to act. We weren't scrambling.
Filing before launch isn't just good strategy. It's the difference between being ready and finding out your options are limited.

DISCLAIMER: This information is for educational purposes only, is not legal advice, and does not form an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, consult with a licensed attorney. This video contains attorney advertising material. Julie King | King Patent Law, PLLC | 301 N Neil St Ste 400, Champaign IL 61820. Phone number and email address available at kingpatentlaw.com.

09/01/2026

Patent? Trademark? LLC? Everyone seems to have different advice about protecting your product — and nobody tells you which to do first.
Here's the framework that actually works, starting with the step most product sellers skip entirely.

DISCLAIMER: This information is for educational purposes only, is not legal advice, and does not form an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, consult with a licensed attorney. This video contains attorney advertising material. Julie King | King Patent Law, PLLC | 301 N Neil St Ste 400, Champaign IL 61820. Phone number and email address available at kingpatentlaw.com.

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