Watch or listen to this episode below.

Brief summary:

In this episode, I'll be talking with James Brinkley II, an intellectual property attorney out of Washington, DC in the United States and the Founder and CEO of IPGen. James and I discuss making the patent process easily accessible for all, how he chooses to focus on small wins and his startup journey so far.

Key insights from this episode:

• (at 02:06)  James shares how the idea of IP Gen came about.

• (at 06:07)  James and Leila talk about ways of celebrating small wins.

• (JB at 08:14) There might be 3, 5, 10 things that went wrong today, but the one thing that did go right, that's what keeps you going. That's what pushes you along. If you constantly celebrate those small things, you will make it to enough tomorrows that you will be great at some point doing something.

• (at 26:05)  James explains the traditional patent application process versus what IP Gen can offer.

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Transcript:

FUEL Podcast hosted by Leila Ansart
EPISODE 5: Celebrating every small win with James Brinkley II, Intellectual Property Attorney
and Founder & CEO of IPGen

INTRO: Hello and thank you for tuning in. In today's episode, I'll be talking with James Brinkley II, an intellectual property attorney out of Washington, DC in the United States.

He was an IP attorney at IBM for several years before parting ways with the tech conglomerate to start IP Gen. A startup serving those in the US patent space. If you haven't heard of them yet, IP Gen helps anyone drafting, prosecuting or litigating patent applications from the novice applicant to the seasoned patent attorney.

James had a vision for everyone to have access to the patent system, furthering inclusion and not alienation. 

I'm looking forward to hearing our conversation today, where James and I discuss making the patent process easily accessible for all, how he chooses to focus on small wins, and his startup journey so far. 

Leila Ansart, Host
All right, well, welcome to the podcast, James. I am thrilled to have you on today. We've been chatting here for a little bit getting all our technology to work and we're finally at a good spot, so welcome. 

James Brinkley II, Guest
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here. I like what you're doing, getting people's stories out. I definitely appreciate the time and the platform. 

Leila Ansart, Host
Absolutely. It's great to have you. Well, James, everyone's just heard your bio on the podcast intro here, but why don't you tell us in your own words your own professional history. Where did you start out? Where did this idea for IP Gen come from and where are you today?

James Brinkley II, Guest
Okay. I guess a long road dating back to my high school years. I think I wanted to start out being a computer programmer.  Then I got into chemistry. When I went to college, I started out as a chemical engineering major, switched to chemistry, because I liked the chemistry aspect more than the engineering aspect of it. I knew I wanted to be an attorney or a patent attorney. We asked some attorneys [to] speak with us on campus about a path you could take, with a science hard background, you could go into a patent law. That piqued my interest from then on. At that point, I knew I wanted to be a patent attorney.

So I did what I had to do. I went to law school. I got my JD from the law school, went and got an LLM from George Washington law school in DC. Started my career at IBM in upstate New York where it was super cold. I started there, and I had a good time, I met some new people. I really started my craft. I really honed in on my craft. I transferred down to the DC area office. 

Then when I was out on paternity leave for my youngest son, I started thinking, how could I do things that could better the processes that I'm doing at work? And so I started thinking about IP Gen and that's when the idea was born. I really didn't start on it until later after that, but that's when the seed was planted. I still have notes of that time of writing and those dates just to show myself when the seed was planted. It took a little while to grow, but that's where we are now. We're preparing for our launch of our platform in just a few weeks actually. It's a busy time. But it's an exciting time. To me it was a long time coming, plenty of ups and downs, as I'm sure we'll get into later in this talk. But when you look back to see how far you've come in such a small amount of time, relatively, you can pat yourself on the back. It's okay to be proud of yourself at times. You don't want to be boastful or arrogant, but you can sit back and smell the roses, so to say, 

Leila Ansart, Host
I love that. Yeah. I completely agree with you.  it's funny, I think we mentioned this or talked about this last time we spoke. I think people who I term “high achievers”, those who aren't satisfied with the status quo, they're looking to innovate, they're looking to make the world better in some way. One of the downsides of that is that we often forget to stop and celebrate the successes that we've had. I applaud you for realizing, “hey, this has been great. I'm not where I want to be yet, but I'm making a lot of progress and I can stop and enjoy that for a moment and give myself that pat on the back”.I think that's a really good mental state to have. 

James Brinkley II, Guest
Definitely, I agree, even a small win. All wins are wins, especially in startup life. I learned that, through some of the ecosystems and accelerators that I have been in, to celebrate each and every small win, because sometimes you don't know when that next win will come. It is to keep you going because they're going to be some valleys. 

Leila Ansart, Host
What does celebrating look like for you, James? 

James Brinkley II, Guest
Right now it's really not the typical what you would think of celebration is: party, a bunch of pompous. It's really just internal to me. 

It is a warm feeling inside even though that's kind of cliche, but it's a warm feeling that you get, how you talk to people. Speaking with the people closest to me, they see a smile on my face or just that excitement stemming from how I speak in regular conversation. it’s just that small, it's not that big. I do plan to celebrate beer once we launch. I do want to have something that marks that milestone, but even now leading up to it's just a warm feeling inside for me. 

Leila Ansart, Host
I like that you said that because I think the other side of, okay, I need to stop and celebrate, right. If we're trying to switch our mental perspective, okay, I need to go out to dinner or treat myself to something or do a weekend away. That's not always feasible. Whether it's because of resources or time or childcare or the pandemic. It's nice that you brought up that it's really more of a state of mind and it makes me remember the practice of gratitude that I'm sure you've heard about, everybody's heard about. I'm sure like many, you've probably gone through seasons of doing that more and doing that less. I know I certainly have. It's very much a synonym to say, okay, I gotta celebrate the small wins. It's the same as saying, okay, these three things didn't work out today, but what's the one thing that did and shifting your perspective to say, where's the win that I can celebrate here.  Would you agree? 

James Brinkley II, Guest
I definitely agree because this life can be lonely, and you can have a hundred people around you but it's still lonely to run a startup. So to not quit because like you said, there might be 3, 5, 10 things that went wrong today, but the one thing that did go right, that's what keeps you going. That's what pushes you along. If you constantly celebrate those small things, you will make it to enough tomorrows that you will be great at some point doing something. What does your company, your family, whatever you're doing, as long as you can keep pushing along. You have to find that within yourself. 

Sometimes that's hard for people because, for me, coming from my background, it's easy for me to quit and go back to the salary that I had because it's there. I can always do that. What can I say to myself?  To say, “Hey, I know that's there, but what I'm doing is so much more worth it to grind it out, to push through, to get to a better side than even what I could get, what that previous salary in that previous life.” 

So I do think we all need to celebrate those small things to keep us pushing along. It's better for yourself. It's better for you mentally, because mental health is a big topic now and you have to make sure that you're good. 

I have two small kids, so I have to make sure that I'm good and in a good headspace. So when I'm around them, I can still raise them in a way that they can excel in class, at home, playing, whatever they're doing. I don't want them to be hurt by what's going on in my head. 

Leila Ansart, Host
Yeah. It's an important factor to keep considering how we show up with the people we care about around us. Even when the circumstances of our career or life or business are not so much in our control, how we show up is in our control. 

James Brinkley II, Guest
It's tough sometimes. Sometimes people see it on your face. You try to hide it, but sometimes it shows through, but you have to minimize those times that it shows and try to keep it to yourself a lot. Instead, give them what they need from you. 

Leila Ansart, Host
You mentioned coming from your background and feeling the need to really make sure you didn't give up. Can you tell us a little bit more about some of the things that you had to overcome and what that looked like in your personal life? 

James Brinkley II, Guest
Right. Just growing up in Norfolk, Virginia, fairly low-income areas. Those areas, a lot of my friends and family, were swallowed up by the circumstances. I lived with my mother for a time and she had a kind of a tight grip on my brother and  I. She still let us go out with our friends and do things, but we knew when it was time to come home. So, it was her doing that. It was luck. We were blessed to make it out, but those things really swallowed up a lot of people that I know. I don't want to have to experience those things again. I don't want my sons to have to experience those things. That pushes me to keep going forward in what I'm doing now. Just coming from there, going to college, going to law school, it opened my eyes to different things. It was a different world. I kind of had to get used to that. 

It was a struggle at first in a different environment with different people around me. But I quickly learned, I quickly adapted to it and I love it. I love being around different types of people because you get different perspectives of life. Even at the job, different perspectives of work. It could be a room full of 10 people where we all have law degrees, but we may attack a problem differently based on our background. Not saying that one is better than the other, but those different perspectives make all the difference to make that great solution. So, I definitely appreciate the struggles that I had, where I came from, because that's making me a better person now. Especially with the people around me at this point in my life. 

Those were the things I had to overcome then. I did well in high school, top few percentage of my class went to college, started off great. But then I joined the fraternity, tried to walk onto the basketball team and it was a bunch of freedom. Like I said, my mom kind of had a tight grip on that. So now I have freedom. I have a class at eight o'clock, I'm not going to that class, I'm going to sleep in. I had to overcome [it]. I went through academic probation, academic suspension. I was suspended for a semester, but that stuff, after that happens, it wakes you up like, Hey, I'm too good for this. This is only a small portion of my life, but it could dictate the rest of my life. So I needed to get it together. 

I got through it but that was a difficult time because it took me a total of eight years to finish undergrad when it shouldn't have. But you know, I reflect on it. I don't regret anything, but during that time, people were saying we ain't gonna finish school because they know that I'm equipped. I have the knowledge to do so, but it just took a while because I wasn't focused. Like I should have been. That's the one thing that I had to overcome as well. 

Leila Ansart, Host
That's interesting. How do you think that experience and the self-awareness that you have about that serves you in your present day? 

James Brinkley II, Guest
Well one, I don't want to fall back into a pit like that, so I'm going to do whatever I can to not get back to that level because it takes a lot to climb out of. And I didn't climb out by myself. I had people around me to help me,  so I don't want to get back into that pit. Now that grit that I got off of climbing out, I can use that in everyday life. Whether it be work, whether it be home, whether it be whatever. I think that grit is what separates a lot of people from being good to great, we can all learn stuff. We can go to college, we can look up things on the internet now, we have a lot of resources at our fingertips, but that little piece that it takes to get you to that next level, that's not taught in the classroom. That's not taught from a book. 

I'm glad that I have that now because I may have quit the startup life by now if I didn't have that. Because there were some times that I'm like, man, I could just go back, but that grit and that perseverance have allowed me to keep going. I think that's the biggest takeaway from that point of my life that I can keep with me now. 

Leila Ansart, Host
I'm impressed when I hear you talk, James, I'm hearing resilience, fortitude, and a really beautiful self-awareness, which I have to say is not always the case with people. I think it's the first step to growth. Your ability to maintain your course despite the pressure that you felt from others, taking as long as you did to get through college. I'm sure that there were comments made to you by people who cared about you and people who just saw you around campus a lot. So the resilience to keep at it. And then that word grit that you use so perfectly. I think it's interesting to say, here's somebody who's starting up a brand new, innovative product, a startup and has been through challenges of his own and is committed to making this come out and making it work and serve the world and the way that you have your vision of it serving. 

I commend that and I think it's important that we stop, kind of going back to our first conversation, and celebrate the small wins. I don't think any of those words are small by the way, but just to go back to that topic, to be able to look at yourself in the mirror when the going is difficult when the challenges come up and to say, no, this is who I am. I'm resilient, I'm full of fortitude. I've got grit. 

I've been through some you-know-what before -- you know what? It's MY podcast-- some shit before. There - I'm saying it. First episode where I used my real language. I think it's important to recognize that when we've been through some of those challenging times, we get to bring all of that forward with us, and it serves us in such a deep way. 

I love the visuals that pop into my head, they crack me up half the time, but it makes me think of one of those superhero costumes, uniforms, whatever you want to call it, where the person is their ‘ordinary self’ and then, they have that moment where they say, okay, it's the time. (I watched Spider-Man recently with my daughter.)

They say, “It's time for me to put on that costume”. For example, the first time he enables the extra features in his mask and all of a sudden his eyes can see all of this data that he couldn't see before. That's kind of how I picture these lessons that we've learned from experiences in our life. You put it on like a pair of glasses and you can say, I can look at this current unfortunate and pain in the butt circumstance through my regular eyes, or I can put on those glasses of resilience and grit and I can say, now here are all the lessons I've learned in the past. I'm putting them on and I'm seeing this challenge through that. It reminds you of really who you are, who you actually are, not who you want to be, but who you are, because you've already overcome so much that it gives you that confidence to say, now I can do this one, too, step by step and keeping focused on the little wins, as you said earlier. 

James Brinkley II, Guest
You have to stay in a moment. A lot of people dwell on the past too much. A lot of people look to the future too much. You have to have both, but too much of anything can be bad for you. This is definitely a situation where if you dwell on your past, if you dwell on your shortcomings too much, or even if you had quick great wins in the past, and you're kind of resting on their laurels, that can stop you from pushing forward and maintaining that or go onto greater heights. Just like if in the past you had challenges, if you dwell on that, you won't be able to get out of it and do great things in the future. If you look too far ahead, the same thing, it is good to have that vision, you need a vision. I have a vision of where I want my company to be now in the next five years and 10 years, but I don't dwell on that vision. You have to focus on what you're doing right now, learn from your past to help better your present, to make for a great future. 

I think those are steps that you can do to make that happen and to continue on a path of an upward trajectory. I really think that people, when they do it that way, the sky's the limit for them. 

Leila Ansart, Host
Yeah. I would agree. Speaking of your vision, you shared with me what got you so excited to start IP Gen and how you could see it revolutionizing the everyday person and the everyday innovator. Why don't you share that with us? 

James Brinkley II, Guest
Okay. You know what they say --What is your ‘why’?   My ‘why’ for doing this, it's kind of twofold. I want to help the little guys be able to be on an even playing field with the bigger guys. The individual inventors to be on the same path with the Apples and the Googles who have unlimited resources. That's one. But also I don't want to alienate the bigger guys, they started off as little guys. So I want to be able to help their bottom line, to help them continue to grow because a lot of them do reach back to help the smaller guys in some capacity, whether it be an accelerator,  if they're investing in their company. They may acquire the company and then bring that whole team on to work, so you don't want to alienate these bigger companies. 

My goal was to make something that both sides could use and use well. That's how my vision for IP Gen came about. We're building a platform that anyone involved in a patent process can use. So as we started building it, if you look back a couple of years when I actually started, it's totally different now because we learned so much of what different types of customers would want and what they would need. So, we are constantly iterating our platform, our tools in the platform to be able to fit the needs of these different types of customer segments, which sometimes they vary hugely like an individual inventor definitely don't have the same needs as Apple, so I had to really sit down and make sure that everyone's needs were met and that's what we're doing.

My goal is to have everyone involved in the patent process, starting in the US, but then expanding to other patent sufficient countries. But to have everyone involved in the patent process on one platform, and this will help everyone all around. We say we're connecting the world through innovation so we have a social network aspect in our platform. We have the collaboration aspect. So, you can go through it by yourself. You can connect with other innovators in a similar space who may have already drafted patents similar in that space to yours and you could connect and they can guide you in that way. Or you can work with an attorney who has years of experience and can get you over that line. However you want to go in that journey, you will own your journey, you will own that process. Attorneys in turn, we have a platform where every potential client is in one space who will love that. Now you have to market to this place, to that place. 

You can focus here on this platform. So it helps everyone throughout the process. We have tools from the beginning of the process all the way through the end, all the way through the maintenance of the patent application --- well maintenance of the patents once they are granted, status tracking. Everything you need will be within this platform. 

Leila Ansart, Host
I have to say, I told you before, I did a very short-term job in college where I was a transcriber for a patent attorney in media PA, if anybody knows that area of the world. I learned so much as a college student about what goes into the patent process. I'll tell you as someone who does not have a patent of my own, it is extremely confusing. For those of the listeners who may not be aware of what's involved, give us the high-level view of expense, typically that's involved. When you are as a single individual, you've got a great idea, you want to innovate a product or you've come up with a widget of some type. What does that look like in the traditional path versus what you're putting together with IP Gen? 

James Brinkley II, Guest
In the traditional path, hiring an attorney and these calls differ, if you go to a big law firm rather than like a boutique or a small law firm, not too much but a typical application that you're going through, it could be anywhere from a few thousand dollars around five to seven, up to like 20, or more than that. On average, you might spend between $10,000 to $15,000 on a pack. Most people can't afford that and then it becomes lack of capital equals lack of IP protection, which equals a lack of getting investors, equals a lack of moving forward and you closing your doors. I feel like this platform will be able to keep more doors open, will be able to push more companies forward in that way because of the costs, it's an archaic system that we have, it doesn't change often. 

We're not saying that you don't need attorneys because they're valuable. I'm an attorney myself. I went there and say that people don't need attorneys. Some people are knowledgeable are smart enough to go through the process alone. Some people can go through a lot of the steps by themselves and then you don't need an attorney to get them on the rest of the way. Then that limits the cost going forward. But with our platform, let's just say, if you're on the platform for three years, which is the typical two to three years from start to finish of a patent application, you will spend only a couple thousand dollars as opposed to the 15, but in that couple of thousand dollars, you can work on as many applications as you want. Let's say if you just did one, I say 2000 versus 15, but if you did five that’s  2000 versus 15 times five. Once you start doing more applications on the platform, your increase in savings increases exponentially. 

So that's what we're trying to push. You don't have to pick that one invention and do that application. Now you can pick the one invention and the little ones around it that may end up being more valuable than the one that you thought. You could work on all of them at the same time and still have that savings, that cost savings. I think it would be huge for access to the patent system as a whole. It would bring together different classes of people, how they say the haves and the have nots, and it allowed them to all realize that patent protection to allow their companies to grow. I'm excited about our launch later this month that people can really see how it would benefit them and start a new wave in this patent system. Yeah, I'm excited and it's definitely going to benefit everyone involved. 

Leila Ansart, Host
That's wonderful. James, thank you for explaining that to those that aren't familiar. I know it's the kind of thing that can just be intimidating right from the get-go. I think your platform is going to really take the guesswork out of it, similar to Wikipedia does for a lot of other projects and things that people want to learn about, this is going to be updating it, like you said, a very archaic system. It's bound to be of huge value to individuals. 

What do you need right now? What do you and the IP gen team need that our audience might be able to do to support you in your launch? At the time of the recording early September, this episode is going to launch in the next few weeks. You'll still be just a week or so away. 

James Brinkley II, Guest
Okay. So, to the audience, just spreading the word. If you know anyone who may need a patent or that type of service, definitely tell them about IP Gen. Send them to our socials, send them to our website, send them to the places that they can see what we're doing. Around that time, we'll have posted our launch event, we're going to do a launch event over Zoom. It can be reached out further. We're going to invite our potential customers. We're going to invite potential investors, media people. It's going to be a big event over Zoom, but I want to make sure that it's over Zoom so we can reach those who can’t come close to us. And  I think that would be how the audience can help. 

We also just released our docu-series. It's kind of leading up to our launch. We're releasing one episode per week up to launch. This week we released the first two episodes because it was a part two to the first episode, but it's really going. It's talking about our journey, how we started, the ups and downs, you'll hear more about the ups and downs. The accelerators and the organizations that helped us stay afloat and to grow. And also the race to launch, like this hectic, chaotic time right now, where you don't see that, but if I still had hair, I might be pulling it out. It really lets you know about us as people, about us as a company and why you can trust us to make sure you get that on that IP done and done right. I can't wait to meet the audience to meet the customers as they reach out, as they look and see certain things. It's coming and just get the word out there. 

Leila Ansart, Host
Where can we find the docuseries James?

James Brinkley II, Guest
Right now it’s on YouTube. I post certain things on my socials which I believe will be attached to the podcast, but it’s on YouTube. I'll provide the links as well for that, but the series is titled IP Genius. We have six episodes,  two launched already this week. This is going to air in a couple of weeks. We'll probably have four to five episodes launched by the time.

Leila Ansart, Host
Search IP Genius on YouTube to find that, correct?

James Brinkley II, Guest
Right.

Leila Ansart, Host
Your company website is IPGen.io, correct? 

James Brinkley II, Guest
Yep. 

Leila Ansart, Host

Wonderful. Awesome. Well, we'll be putting all of those links in the show notes. If you're listening on your favorite podcast channel, you can certainly find that in the show notes, or if you're on our website, you can find it there as well, as well as a full transcript of today's podcast recording.

James, this has been really enjoyable. I'm excited about your upcoming launch. I’m absolutely sure of the success. As we close up today, tell us about who you are personally. I always like to ask this fun question: besides who you are personally, tell me about one person that if you could have a conversation with, they would be at the top of your list, dead or alive. 

James Brinkley II, Guest
Okay. Well, the one person that recently passed away, it would have to be Kobe Bryant. He's the reason I want number 24 when I played. I just liked his work ethic. I like how much he put into the game, but more so than that after he retired, you really got to know him as a person, as a dad, as someone who wanted to affect change in the community. He was big on women's rights because he had all daughters. So just to sit down and pick Kobe’s brain, I was sure he had valleys as well, but you didn't really see a lot of those because he was in the lab working and working. When it came to the public, all you saw was greatness. I want to talk to him and be like, how did you keep going? What really drove you to want to be as great as you were? Because, in essence, I want to be as great as I can be while I'm here. We all don't have a long time to be here. As his life was cut short, a couple of years ago. 

I just want to affect the most change with the most people while I'm here. And, I think he will be a great person to speak with, to see how to do that and in that way. So Kobe Bryant, definitely.

Leila Ansart, Host
Thank you for sharing. I know you're a dad yourself. You mentioned earlier, you've got two boys and you're a husband. Tell us more about who you are on the personal side of things. 

James Brinkley II, Guest
Outside of the company, I still enjoy playing basketball before the pandemic. Myself and a few guys, we used to get up and play at six in the morning, a couple of days a week, just to keep it going. And, since the pandemic happened, I really couldn't get out there much but I'm about to get back out there and start playing.  I can play for a while, but not to the level that I used to. Because I'm getting up there but I'm finding other sports now. I started playing golf a bit as you can see the clubs in the background, trying to find other things. I dabbled in tennis a bit, but just other sports to keep my body going. As I continue on in life. I'm a huge sports fanatic.

I eat some candy-like Swedish fish. I'm a Swedish fish connoisseur.  I have someone on my desk right now. It's those things that are little quirks that you have. People probably don't know that.

I'm a two coffee cup drinker per day. I try not to go over two. Most times I drank both of those in the morning and I'm like, I need another one, but  I say no, just things like that. Family is super important to me. 

Leila Ansart, Host
That's wonderful. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. I've loved getting to know you and I'm really excited to be cheering you on as you launch and we see the success of your organization. For everybody listening, If you haven't yet, go ahead and write down, jot down, text yourself, or get on those socials and go to IPGen.io to check out James, his company, check out his docu-series on YouTube. As I said, we will include the links to his other social channels so that you can reach out to him if you'd like to connect, in the show notes.

Until another conversation, James. I wish you the best and thanks again for being here today. 

James Brinkley II, Guest
Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure.