Patents & Table Game Inventions

Heather: Welcome back to Vegas Aces livestream. My name is Heather Ferris and I will be your host for today. On this livestream we will be discussing patients and table game inventions with our guest Brent Weiss with Money Suit. Brent would you like to introduce yourself and tell the audience a little bit about yourself?

Brent: Sure first off thanks for having me on Heather. Good to see you again even though virtually during covid times. My name is Brent Weiss. I am the owner and president of Money Suit Industry LLC. I am the creator and developer of games known as Money Suit 31. Thirty one Classic Double, Double Shot 31, Break the House Blackjack, Empty the Rack Blackjack, and Advantage Play 3 Card Furry which took third place in last years cutting edge table games conference.

Heather: Cool. Thank you so much! And thank you very much for being on and sharing your experience and everything with table games inventions and also with patents. Now if you guys the viewers, if you are watching and you have any questions, if you have any suggestions anything like that please put it in the chat and I will answer your questions at the end of this video.

First question, first thing I want to talk with you Brent is patents. There is so much to patents. And table game inventors, when they are inventing their game everyone tells them you gotta get a patent. And then they try to get a patent and all of a sudden they are being told no casino table game inventors can’t get patents for their games. They can only get patients for the equipment on the game. And some games actually do give patents amazingly and some don’t before hand everyone used to get a patent. And then no one was getting a patent. And now it’s like -- it’s just so confusing right now. So if you can, I would love to hear your experience with this and what you know about patents.

Brent: Yes absolutely! As you said it’s a rather confusing and things are kinda fluid. They do keep changing. But the biggest hurdle that had happened on our side of the business at this point about a decade ago is a case known as Bilski Vs Kappos had come out. And in a nutshell, I am not going to go to deep into it, what happened was a commodities trader I tried to patent a mathematical equation that they used to hedge risk in an unstable market to man. What I have been determining in that is that mathematics can effect be patented, it's public domain. And from that, that started getting applied to numerous industries, such as tech and gaming where they had to determine that -- like you were saying such games of really abstract ideas and it’s really just cards moving around the table differently and the math is slightly different. So that all patent applications started getting rejected because of Bilski. And even more so of late, there was a case known as Smitthatall, which had actually come out, if I remember correctly is baccarat side way that had been rejected. And they appealed the decision and then the court had determined that they use these things known as freealasfactors from another case that affected, like you were saying, meant you needed a piece of hardware or a piece of equipment to effectively would get you over that hurdle in order to get past and get your game and actually patented.

Now to take it a step further, like you were saying, is it is very important on our end of the business to protect our product at every end if we can. So like you were saying, patents are hardpress to come by these days, however of late it seems that things do seem to be changing slightly for the better on our side of things. Over the last several years we have seen certain games actually get granted the actual patients on the fiscal aspects of the table games. Which a couple years ago really had just started getting issued on the electronic forms. So it is a sign of light for our end of things, but it is a lot of gray area where people should definitely pursue patents. You have to understand the cost and timeframe associated. But you just have to just go on with the knowledge of knowing that you may or may not actually get it granted. And that doesn’t mean that you still don’t have a viable product. Just means you don’t have as much protection whereas somebody might be able to step in, of course, make a similar game or knock off and come forward if you don’t have that patent.

Heather: Okay. So how much is it to get a patent. I have heard it is extremely expensive and it takes years before they even decide if you get your patent or not. So until then it’s always patent pending.

Brent: Correct. Now it’s hard to give you a finite cost associated and I don’t want to step on any attorneys toes obviously by misquoting them. But it is a very expensive process. Just talking about cost, what I like to give that very large range is it can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000 all in. And the process goes, where you have your idea -- the first thing you are going to do of course is talk to a patent attorney. That patent attorney is going to do a search for you. That’s going to run you a couple hundred to a couple thousand dollars depending upon the number of similar inventions out there. And then depending on what they find they will issue an opinion letter. Which says we think this is patentable or we think that it is not unfortunately theres conflicting patents that already exist. And then from there the biggest expense really comes from the initial draft of the actual application.

And then like you said, the time frame effectively runs from anywhere from a year to a year and a half before you are going to get the first response from the actual USPTO. And that is going to be known as an Office Action. And effectively that’s going to be is the examiner from the USPTO is going to review your patent application obviously. Cross reference that other patents that exist, and then come back with saying A claims 1- 18 are rejected, for reasons A or these claims are going to be accepted with these revisions and so forth. And every time one of those comes in your attorneys -- as long as it’s not final action, has to then respond to that Office Action, which again is going to take about six months or so. And cost you a pretty penny for the response thereafter as well.

And then the one last little thing I want to chime in there is, what we were just discussing was known as the utility pack. That’s the 17 or 20 year packages. Is what everybody really knows. On our end of the business it’s actually not a terrible idea as an inventor to pursue what is known as a Provisional Patent first. Now what that is effectively is just a place holder in the USPTO office. Where it just sits there, it’s not reviewed and effectively or pending through that time where you can market the game. You have hypathetly some protection. Where as if you forward later on and you transfer that over to the Utility Pack you get the original filing date from that original ?? (7.03) application. If that wasn’t too much to throw at you, in a nutshell.

Heather: Well I just wanted clarification on one thing real quick. So when you are getting your patient you said at first what was happening was the math of the game and the actual game itself they weren’t too dissimilar is why the patents were being rejected. And you can get patents if it’s equipment. You can get patents if it’s like a certain idea or if it’s a specialized idea. So what really -- my question is what really does get patented on the casino table for the table game invention. What is actually being patented?

Brent: So for example, aside from the expeceptions that I mentioned recently about fiscal game that have actually pressed, pushed through. So what is happening after the Bilski case had come out, is what a lot of inventors were doing, the patentability versus abstract idea issue is like you are getting to by incorporating some sort of hardware. Some sort of aparatas was getting people over that hump of patentability vs abstract ideas.

So for one example is what some people were doing they were building in random number generators into table game patents. Which was a piece of physical hardware that had to be used in conjunction with the game. By doing so, even though technically speaking that piece of hardware took them over the hump to get the actall claims granted. The other claims do get granted underneath that official independent claim. I know this is getting stepping out of everyone's wheelhouse that is listening probably. But that’s what effectively was getting patented which then had all the dependent claims come in which effectively was protecting the games. However again that does seem to be changing. Aside from it’s the hardware aspect, regular fiscal table games, like one of mine Advantage Play 3 Card Fury does seem to be starting to past Oscar again and may or may not be actually be granted patents for the fiscal games versus the electronic versions like the ETGs which are easier to get passed because it is a piece of hardware. If that makes sense.

Heather: Okay. Yeah. So now that it’s changing what is it changing to?

Brent: What I have been seeing and my knowledge isn’t as vast obviously as some patent attorney that deal with this on a daily basis. But what was happening before, again this is my non patent attorney, I am an attorney but not a patent attorney. When we were seeing parents get granted of within the last five years, usually we see the fisal game get reject but the electronic version would get granted. So it’s like a computer that’s relying on actual coding to screen. I won’t get to much into it, but that was allowing those to get through. Where as I will use say Ultimate Texas Hold’em, just using a game that everyone is familiar with. Where as hypothetically speaking based on what I am using as an example now is that the fiscal game, hypothetically, wasn’t protected but the electronic version in ETG form or stadium format technically were. So that’s what people were effectively getting pushed through on patents. And then from there you don’t want to see somebody else while the electronic form was protected and physical isn’t. Your not going to see as many people stepping in and ripping off the physical form, because that patent already exist and the market already exist for the games that are protected them after that IP.

Heather: Okay cool! So before we stop talking about patents, is there anything else you want to tell our viewers that you think that they may need to know if they want to be table game inventors?

Brent: Just what we already crossed off the list. Just expect knowing going in that it’s very unlikely that your going to get that patent pushed through. Whether it’s a Bilski issue or just that existed in the past. But don’t get discouraged by these things. I mean people like myself are still out there as an independent trying to make this stuff happen. So you can use me as inspiration I guess but don’t follow completely, that wouldn’t be good. But, just go in there knowing what your hurdles are that are in front of you with an open mind. And just kinda keep pressing forward. Don’t give up on a dream just because you think you are going to have some IP hurdles doesn’t mean you can’t get a product out there.

Heather: Great advice! Thank you. It’s pretty hard to invent a table game isn’t it?

Brent: Yes unfortunately it is.

Heather: How many games do you have right now under your belt?

Brent: Right now I think I have seven that are effectively commercialized. I’ve had -- I’m going to have by the end of this year four out in live play at some point along the way. I have seven or eight fully completed that I am hoping to get back out on the market.

Heather: So from the experience of you inventing seven games, what did you find to be the hardest thing about it and what advice would you have to give to our viewers that would maybe make them a little easier for them?

Brent: Unfortunately like everybody knows, the hardest aspect of this whole process is not the development but the sales. Obviously when you are trying to get something that is new as an independent like us to get a facility to take something off their floor to put us in, that’s the biggest hurdle. It took me about six years to develop my initial network try to start doing -- you know getting the context to speak to the people that are the decision makers. That’s the biggest issue. The best thing that I can say to people is the new world even preCovid but now everything is digital, what has really helped me on the sales front is actually a certain social media outlets like LinkedIn. It’s easy for me to -- not target in a bad way but figure out who it is I need to speak to. Where as when I was first started, when I was trying to figure who we have as director of table games or the VP of Casino Operations where I was calling operators at casino facilities trying to gather information. Straight cold calling. So it’s -- but the biggest hurdle is definitely sales and the best piece of advice I can to inspiring developers with no network out there is try to become active on things LinkedIn, try to contact people like yourself who has an existing network and does things for developers like me. Like develop whether it be documentation, do the videos like we have all seen you do, and it will just get games in front of people. Because when you are going in cold and you have nobody, it’s just like trying to walk up on the street trying to sell somebody as DVD. Your just a random person trying to sell them something, they may or may not want or need.

Heather: Yeah exactly. I completely agree with you 100%! And that’s one of the things we try to tell our clients is, when you are doing this you have to remember it’s like you are putting a product on the shelf of a grocery store. You need marketing, you need packaging, you need advertising, you need to tell people about your product. Otherwise they are not going to go playing. It’s the same thing with table game inventions.

Brent: Exactly! And one more little aspect to that also it’s not just selling it to the consumer. On our end you need to sell it to staff, you need to sell it to everybody on the floor. Because if you don’t train -- and you know this better yourself because you train dealers yourself, but if I’m coming into a facility and you have your floor staff and knows all of their games -- right now I am ok, I have this great product and believe me, none of them are going to have that mindset at first. You are going to think your baby is great but it’s something new to them and they have no idea what it is. Now you need to really be on the same level as everybody, be personable and just be ready to hear A: negative feedback and to hear just pushback with people that just don’t want to learn something new. So you have to be thick skinned in the sense of being able to take constructive criticism and at the same time listening and applying that to your products moving forward. Because there are a lot of things you don’t want to hear that will actually benefit you in channeling your product for the marketplace moving forward. At first I didn’t want to hear it, but over time I needed to listen and it actually helped me grow over time in this business.

Heather: Yeah! And there are several things too -- it will kill your game right away. I mean your game could be the best game in the entire world. It could be fun, simple, great, I mean the most coolest game ever, and there are certain things that will just utterly destroy it. And like you said, like you were talking about, if the dealers don’t know how to deal your game, and they are dealing it improperly, and they are not dealing your game how it should be dealt, that will destroy it!

Brent: Crazy thing is for so many different reasons, whether it just be miss pays, which will get them in trouble with their staff supervisor, they are going to hate the game. If a player is seeing the game and they are seeing the dealer having trouble with payouts, they know they might get slides somewhere along the way and get mad at a dealer and walk away. I have seen this millions of times, so have you. It’s just a matter of every little thing can go wrong in this. Everybody has their own perspective and everybody has their opinions coming from one specific side of the table on this, which I guess is funny to say it that way. But that’s how it goes.

Heather: Yeah. If they don’t know what they are doing when they are dealing this game they could be explaining to the players how to play incorrectly. That could give the player a bad view of your game. Whereas if they played it correctly they might have fun, they might enjoy it. They might have a new favorite game, but because this dealer explained it the way that he did, they don’t have fun, they don’t enjoy it, they don’t get it, it’s confusing. That’s one of the things about table game inventions is when you invent a table game you want it to be simple, but you don’t want it to be boring.

Brent: Exactly!

Heather: Yeah. So would you talk a little more about that?

Brent: Yea, absolutely. One little add on to what you were saying, is even if it is something as simple as the dealer explaining optimal strategy or even basic strategy improperly, that one wrong decision every few hands could jack up the house edge on a game for that player significantly. Which means that they will get cleaned down and never come back to the table.

But like you had said, it is not only just keeping games simple, because UTH (Ultimate Texas Hold’em for those of that don’t know the abbreviation) which is the most popular game out there right now, is not that simple. A lot of dealers do not like it because there are these different steps. There is all the different betting options for players and there’s all these different wagers. But when it comes to developing a game -- I know you are friendly with Mike Shackelford obviously, which many of your viewers I am sure are very familiar with as well. His big thing has got to be keep it simple stupid, right? You gotta keep it incredibly simple. Not only for players but for dealers as well. You have to keep the strategy simple, you have to keep the game play simple so you can explain the game within like 15-30 seconds to a new player. That doesn’t need to be everything but you have to give the general concept to someone quick so they can say, “Yeah that sounds ok, I will give it a shot.” Versus “I don’t know what you are talking about pal!” and cary on and go to blackjack.

So like you said, it’s gotta be simple and then it also comes into development the math has to be tailored perfectly. The best example to use for this is I believe 3 Card Poker when it first came out way back when from Derek Webb. Obviously we know 3 Card is the biggest game effectively ever! But when it first started I think it failed three times at first. I think on the third one the determination, I could be somewhere off on this but I think it was determined that I think it was the flush or the straight on the pair of plus was paying to much or term was built into it? Or something. So the game effectively was dumping money and I think that’s what effect that made it not succeed at first. Obviously 3 Card Poker is 3 Card Poker so we know they fixed something. Obviously somewhere along the way. But something so simple like that could ruin a 3 Card Poker from making it the next 3 Card Poker. As funny as it sounds to me saying that.

Heather: And you bring up an excellent point, you have a hit like 3 Card Poker and that game sat in the corner of some random casino for a year or two.

Brent: A while.

Heather: It was a while. Before it finally became big. So just because it’s not succeeding right away doesn’t mean you don’t have a hit.

Brent: Exactly! And that comes down to not even just floor placement but placement around the country also. So you know casinos jurisdiction markets are so different. Where if you go to a place like Washington State now, one of their most popular games on the floor is still Spanish 21. And some people, I am sure a lot of your viewers know what Spanish 21 is. But Spanish 21 has been out a long long time. I believe it’s Mass Publishing, and it’s been on the market for a very long time and was super successful then over time it started coming out of a lot of markets. You will see it, virtually nowhere in the North East or on the East coast. You go back to the West and then the North West, it’s everywhere. You never know what’s going to work at some places. Some of my games like 31 Classic, and Money Suite 31 is I grew up playing game 31 in the North East and I know it is very big in places like Louisiana and Mississippi where a game might work and then take it to Minnesota or Michigan and people might absolutely hate it there for whatever reason. So you never know what’s going to work where. And to go back to what to tell developers like you said, If you fail one time, make changes and try to find that right jurisdiction to launch your game. If it keeps failing, you know your product has some issues. But you never know what will work somewhere. It might work at one facility that is next door to another one. You just never really know what someone is going to take to a game and sometimes it’s just like gambling on both sides. People are getting beat up, they are going to hate it. If people win a ton of money they are going to love the game even if it’s the worst game on the planet. So it’s kinda funny the psychological aspect of everything.

Heather: Yeah. It’s also weird -- speaking of the psychological aspect of it. If you put your game into a casino in Las Vegas, you are more likely to put that game in another casino, somewhere in another state in America like it is easier. You know because it's that gold standard.

Brent: Some people don’t agree. I am full fledged on that train. I think that Nevada is a great starting point. Not everybody agrees. Some of my associates in Queens do not agree with that at all. Where one I am not going to name obviously but you know him. And he is out on the West Coast. I am absolutely never presenting anything to a Vegas facility until I have three or four working installs in all these different states. I am with you, I think that if you get in Nevada and it’s working at let’s say Mirage or MGM Grand and players come see it and they love it. They are like I’m taking this back to my state, I’m going to my tribal facility saying I saw this great game 3 Card Furry you need to bring it in here. Or I saw this game Empty the Rack Blackjack you need to bring it in. Verses you have a hit in Washington state then they come to Vegas and ask people if they have seen it they are not going to know what that person from Washington is talking about. So I agree with you 100% on that. Not everybody is on the same page.

Heather: Yeah. And just playing devil's advocate really quick, since we both agree why not right? What would the reasonings be behind it for not going to Las Vegas? What would some reasonings be that your friend would say?

Brent: I am going to split this answer up, but in his perspective is who’s going to know about it in Las Vegas. Is he putting a new game on the floor, does he want someone to know about it beforehand so you are not just recreating a new market. That is his opinion where he wants to put it into let’s say five Southern California locations and then it’s working everyone in So. Cal loves it so when we go to Vegas next weekend for this party, they are going to not see it on the floor and they are going to ask somebody.

Or then he has the data to show this facility and what it’s holding or what’s it’s dropping versus 3 Card Poker. So that’s his perspective, he wants to have a functioning mathematical product but as we both know, again variance changes things drastically from one place to another. So I can have a game in Southern California holding 10%, which going to be absolute failure everywhere for a carnival game. And then it can be in the Northern part of the state and be holding 29% perfectly. So that’s why it’s really subjective. So everyone is going to have their opinions, we all know if you dispute that then you are going to get yelled at. So it is what it is. But that is one of the reasons why, and now just to take it a step further when you have Vegas -- when you think Vegas you think the strip but you obviously being from Vegas know there’s much more to Nevada than the strip. So Stations facilities, or Boyd Gaming facilities that are more local, local markets might be, I will call it “acceptable” for my friend from California because it’s not like the Toris (?? 23:16)market on the strip where he would use those arguments against for saying I wouldn’t want to bring it there first. If that makes sense.

Heather: Yeah. It does. Definitely.

Brent: Okay.

Heather: So before we move on is there anything else about table -- actually inventing the table game that you want to tell our viewers? I know when I get emails from people a lot of times they are asking me about the process so I tell them. I give them the steps for example when you start off you have to get a big sheet of paper and actually draw the table out and play it and write down the rules and people are surprised that they have to do this. You know!

Brent: Yep.

Heather: So is there anything else that you would want to add to that?

Brent: There is actually one little thing that is funny that goes quite in line with what you were saying, and this is beyond I guess. When it comes to like you were saying, drawing out a layout, what’s very important people always forget is making sure the procedure is funcuntal. It's not a hassle for a dealer for instance. My game is 3 Card Furry is about four betting circles right? Now if those betting circles were in the wrong place the dealer is not going to be able to payout on the Ante without like reaching over wagers, as we all know can come into bet capping issues. We are not going to go to far into a worm hole of cheating on this but you understand the issues of that. And if it is just a pain for a dealer to deal then they are never going to want to deal the game. If they are leaning over the table just to pay off on a play wager and their back is turned. They are pretty much not going to convince anybody to sit down, because they are not going to want to be dealing that game. So just simply something like the mechanics of actually dealing the game, something that simple is very important when you are trying to put something on paper and make the procedures dealer friendly. Something simple as reach can destroy a game. Little things like that are also very important.

Heather: Yeah. As a marketing company, reach -- it’s weird you don’t think about this stuff when you are doing it. But reach is very important. Like we actually have to sit there and measure the dealers reach to make sure they can reach it. When we are printing our table layouts we have to make sure we don’t go over a certain amount so that way all dealers can reach it. I mean it’s like you don’t think that you would have to think about these kind of things.

Brent: Every little nuance has to be thought through. You will not know that right up front, but over time unfortunately I yelled at, I had to learn that over and over with experience.

Heather: Yeah it’s always one way to learn, right?

Brent: Trial and error is the best right?

Heather: Right! So is there anything else you would like to tell the audience before we move on to the next section?

Brent: No not really. Just the biggest thing is when it comes to the math for the game, try to find an independent first, don’t go to a GLI/BMM right off the bat. Because you are going to have to play with paytables and so forth so it would be a good idea to find an independent first. And that’s the little bit I think I will throw in.

Heather: Okay. Cool. So moving on to the next section, a lot of times when table games are talking to me, they think that they are going to invent a table game and just sell it to Galaxy Gaming or something and everything will be fine and happy and the game will go in and everyone will be paid and played and all this stuff. Everything that they thing, just does not happen, this is not how it works. You know. I’m sure you can talk a lot about this but from what I hear from people is they spend a lot of time, a lot of years, a lot of money. Like when you are inventing a game you're going to spend $20,000 - $50,000 - $100,000 you know, depending on how many variations of the game you have. Or how many games you have. And one of the things is after they spend all that time and money on it, they finally do get to sell it to say Galaxy Gaming or whoever it is because we have so many different ones. And they buy the game for $10,000 and then put it on the shelf and it never goes anywhere and inventors are distraught. So I was hoping you could talk a little bit about that weird aspect of what people think is going to happen versus reality.

Brent: Yeah and that has changed over time also, again this kinda is subjective, just before I jump in head in that first take a step back to kind of go back, to kinda go back to additional things I should tell people is that factors into the cost perspective is, everybody needs to understand on the table games perspective, is that each jurisdiction is very different when it comes to approval and licensing. So in our aspect, to put it in a nutshell is that if you are going to launch a game, you want to find jurisdictions that are not going to cost you $75,000 for approval and licensing. And some of them will. So you really need to find out if you are going to require a service supplier license and distributor license or manufacture license or none. That will pretty much dictate where you’re going to launch a game at first as an independent.

Certain jurisdictions like Pennsylvania and some of the other really expensive ones aren’t going to be feasible. Especially if you are going to be manufacturing and just going to keep losing money every year until you go out of business. Okay so to touch base upon the how things are going to work is, like you were saying, especially these days, like about five to 10 years ago things were a little bit different. Where if you did come up with a game and it was great. You approach someone like Roger Snow from Side Games and they liked it, they might make you an offer right off the bat without having any proof you got accepted. Now obviously things have changed a little bit since then. Realistically the way things work now is that you are not just going to come without game itself. Unfortunately you’re going to have to go out and hopefully pick up your first trial yourself. Maybe two, maybe three. Hopefully they all work. So these days the reason you don’t want to do that is showing proof of concepts, like you said you are not going to just approach somebody you spent $35,000 patenting a game and then you sell it to somebody, company X for $10,000 and like you said -- I use company X to not upset anybody, they put it on the shelf and it just sits there. They never sell the game. Because they are out of business I can openly talk about this, I had formerly been under license with DDQ. I came to them because I wanted to launch in Canada and the facility wanted a progressive system, and backs and licensing aspect, I can’t do that myself for a number of different reasons. I can’t produce the hardware and then go through all the cost associated. So I came to them with a trial, they were going to move forward. We signed our contracts, they launched some of my games GTE the next year but never moved forward with the trial in Canada. And one of the important things I did, and this is taking a step beyond what I thought I would be discussing here but for your own people that are listening, one of the important things I do if you do get to the point and you do license it to the big boys, is you want to have minimum table requirements per year. So that in the event somebody does take the game and put it on a shelf, like they did with mine, you have an exit strategy, or an exit later on if they do in fact act in a bad way that I will say. So that you can take it back and move forward. So what I had done is that I canceled the contract, was able to get side games or at the time was still Shuffle Master to produce my progressive agreement myself. So that’s one of the aspects of it.

Heather: That’s great advice.

Brent: Now to take it one step further is if you get games out yourself. Let’s say you get 10 placements. Hey fantastic! You're probably not going to sell. They are all working. And you are taking in a couple tens of thousands of dollars monthly leasing revenue. And then you approach one of the bigger boys. They are not going to give you $10,000 for the patent. They are going to want the active installs, they are going assume those contracts, so you could get some significant upfront money which would prevent those companies from effectively shelving the game because they are not going to make the investment, shelve it, and then just use that money so they can sell their own products. If they are going to make that sort of investment, then they are going to move forward with the product and try to earn some more money. Now one little final thing -- not to keep rampling but, some things are slowly changing unfortunately on our side of the business, but there are a lot of site licenses that are getting executed between facilities and the bigger supplies where, instead of paying like from a monthly per table lease and they are all different prices, they are just bulking everything together to effectively give it to them cheaper. So it’s a little bit harder for us to break into the big boys and enter their portfolio because it’s just going to get lost in the mix of all those games. That might change things on our side of the business a little bit, where the independences might want to move forward them self a little while before they work to sell to the bigger distributors and so on.

Heather: Okay. Cool. And one last question and I think we will end it for today. After your experience what would you recommend? Would you recommend the inventor going out and doing this by themselves like what you were talking about? Or would you recommend them creating the game and then selling it? Like what do you think is better for the inventor?

Brent: I think these days I would say it is best to try to atleast get your foot out somewhere else. Try to get your fist and sell yourself. If it’s just not going to happen some people just don’t have the where with all to be a salesman. And some people really know they can’t do it. They just don’t want to be face to face with people, and they don’t want to handle the rejection. Then instead of maybe working for one of the big big guys whether it be Side Games Galaxy or so forth. Maybe approaching one of the small distributors that doesn’t have a gigantic portfolio or products where this could get lost, that is licensed in a few jurisdictions. I don’t want to specifically name and people but let’s say I’ll just use Aces Up Gaming out there because I know Todd. Where they are a smaller company. They focus on some other jurisdictions, not everywhere. They might be more hard pressed to get your game out there verses someone that is scared of a shelving situation and so forth. If that answers that question.

Heather: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. And for people that are watching if you are inventing a table game, and you don’t want to do the fact to face of selling or the marketing part of it Vegas Aces is here to help. We do provide all of the marketing for you. We create the table layouts, the rack cards, custom equipment, anything you need. And then we will use our contacts and we will help get your game in the casino for a field trial.

Brent: One of the biggest things that I like that you do for people, is the biggest thing now because of Covid we are not having any in person meetings so quickly obviously. Your demo videos that you supply and you produce do wonders for people like me at this point. Granted I do my own, but they are the same. Where when you can do a demonstration video is the same as if you are in person in front of those people at the facility. If you can pair that video and then if you can afford a game video online like I have on my website moneysuit31.com it’s a sales pitch is right there for you, you never have to speak a word. All you need is good literature, a demo, a video and it does the selling for you as long as you have a viable product, that’s worthwhile for the facility.

Heather: Cool. Thank you so much for being on. Thank you for telling us your experiences and giving us your wisdom and everything. We really really hope we can have you back one day.

Brent: Yeah my pleasure. I am happy to answer any questions and come back whenever you want to have me on.

Heather: And do you want to let people know how they can find you or one of your games? Do you have a website, social media, email anything you want to throw out there?

Brent: Yeah sure you can reach -- my website is moneysuite31.com and if you want to email me, if you have any questions about anything we discussed, if you want to go through Vegas Aces by all means. You can email me through the website there is a contact us tab that gives you a gmail address and then I am very big on things like LinkedIn. Just search my name Brent Weiss. I am on Facebook. I am not a very good presence there as far as the company. I would say LinkedIn or you can email me through the website and all my game demos are on that website moneysuite31.com

Heather: Okay cool. And back to our viewers really quick, if you guys like this video and you want to help support Vegas Aces, then one of the ways you can do it is by going to vegas-aces.com and clicking on one of our affiliate banners when you sign up for an account through an affiliate link from this site we get a small commission. It really helps, especially right now. If you ever have any problems we will be there for you. We will help you through any dispute you may have. And also, if you guys have any more questions or comments put them in now because we are going to answer them in one second. Just a quick reminder Vegas Aces is supported by viewers like you. Donations make it possible for us to bring you all these videos for free. If you think this video was worth more than $0 please contribute the amount you feel it’s worth by clicking the link in the description below.

Okay. Now let’s go answer your questions. Everything. We have been waiting for this. Let’s do this. Okay so our first question comes from Dane.

Q: Dane - Here is a question and I apologize if this has already been answered, but if someone wants to get a patent for a new table game, what are the procedures to get said patents?

Brent: Okay, so to try to put it in a nutshell is like you said, you are going to want to see the idea ironed out in your head. That could be putting it down on paper so you at least you have the idea. You’ll then reach out to a patent attorney. Whether you do research on Avo? (36:14) or get referred somebody. If you need table games patent attorneys by all means reach out to me and I can put you in touch with specific people that do work in this industry. And then that patent attorney is going to fist do a search for you, to make sure there there's no conflicting marks. Once they do that search they are going to issue to you what is known as an Opinion Letter. That says they believe that you have no conflicts out there and you can move forward. Or they will tell you unfortunately you have an issue. Then effectively that attorney once you retain is gone through then draft the patent for you. Once it’s drafted, they will then of course submit it on your behalf. And effectively nothing is going to happen for about a year to a year and a half. In that interim what is happening is it is getting assigned an examiner after USPTO which is the patent and trademark office. At some point in that year to year and a half process they are going to review it and then issue what is known as Office Action. Which is either going to grant certain claims or reject them. Whether it’s a final rejection or whether it is a non-final rejection. Once that comes in your patent attorney, if he believes you have an argument against will then draft his Office Action response, which is usually a three to six month window. Which is usually three to six month window which is usually a three to six window, which is dictated in the actual Office Action from USPTO. Once that goes in -- when it is submitted by your attorney then just sits again for another three to six months. Then you are either going to get another Office Action, a Grant Letter or it’s going to be fully rejected unfortunately. And then at that point, if your patent is going to be issued they will issue you an Issuance Letter. And then from there effectively you pay the issuance fees and then it gets issued.

Right before the patent is issued, you can actually file what is known as a Continuation. Where once you know Patent A is going to get granted, you want to draw it in the claims slightly and later it a little bit, you can file Continuation. Which is effectively like a new patent application for a second patent. Once the first one is granted, if that Continuation is filed, you go through the same process with that. But otherwise if that first patent is granted. You’re now panted and then you will pay maintenance fees over the next effectively 17 years every 3.5 years or so.

Heather: Cool.

Brent: In a nutshell.

Heather: That is a pretty big nutshell. It’s a lot to it. Thank you so, so much for being on and that you everyone for watching. Really do appreciate it. Before we go one last one. Domestic thank you very much for the SuperChat. I will give Pip those treats. We have SuperChat perks where one of them Pip gets a treat. My little dog, she loves it when I do livestreams. Any way. Thank you again. Until then this is Heather Ferris and Brent Weiss reminding you that education can change the world. See you guys!

Brent: Take care!