LegalZoom com: Legal Services versus Legal Advice

LegalZoom com is a website which provides a wide variety of legal services including some related to intellectual property. LegalZoom was formed in 2001 as a way to provide online access to forms for a variety of common legal situations, including the preparation of wills and deeds, business formation, and estate planning.

Inventor Tip:

Registering your idea early could be vital to keeping your rights. Sometimes it's a race to the patent office, as was the case with the telephone with two patents being filed the very same day. Do you even know the name of the OTHER guy?

LegalZoom com: “Legal Services”

LegalZoom is a “legal services” website, which means that you are not actually contracting a lawyer while using their services. The website instead provides customers with materials needed to fill out the forms for themselves, which can result in reduced prices for the customer. However, in many cases, this can lead to problems down the road.

LegalZoom com: Not Technically a Legal Firm

What this means is that they cannot give any legal advice along with their services. LegalZoom will sell you template documents and help to fill them out correctly through proofreading, data entry, and other services. Unfortunately, they cannot help you with the content of these forms.

LegalZoom com: Legal Documentation

In a field like intellectual property, the value of legal documents is directly related to how well they are written. Sites such as LegalZoom may be able to help an untrained person to draft a will or other simpler document. However, a Patent Application is very complex and difficult to fill out correctly for someone without training in claims writing techniques.

LegalZoom com: Filing a Patent Application

When filing a Patent Application or similar document, LegalZoom and similar paralegal but non-law firm services will help you to literally fill in all of the required fields on the application. Without the help of a trained Patent Agent, an untrained user may encounter a situation where the application was “technically” filled out, but is rejected by the USPTO due to the fact that it was not written in a proper form, thus wasting the client’s time and application fee money.

LegalZoom com: Not an Intellectual Property Firm

Sites such as this do not offer advice or opinions, thereby ridding themselves of all legal responsibility. This can result in a situation where a user spends money and obtains a Patent, only to find later that it was not properly written and does not protect their invention as they wanted. The use of an intellectual property firm allows a registered Patent Agent or Attorney to reach out to you with advice and can result in a much better value for your idea.