The Legal Side of Space Business: Conversation with guest - John Gordon

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[00:01:56] Hi, I am your host, Izzy House. And today, we're diving into the legal side of space with John Gordon, corporate attorney with Taft, Statinius, and Hollister. So, lift off in 3, 2, 1. Welcome to the Space Marketing Podcast.

[00:02:26] Information relating to our discussion today and links to the video version can be found in the episode show notes on spacemarketingpodcast.com. Please like and subscribe to the podcast. It will help more people reach beyond the atmosphere. Information in this episode is for entertainment and information only. Please consult a professional for your specific situation.

[00:02:53] Today, we are looking at the tools of the trade. Before promotion can begin, there are some legal ducks to get in the row. As space companies begin their journey to go beyond the atmosphere, agreements need to be made with partners. Intellectual property needs to be protected. Day-to-day agreements with employees and vendors need to be crafted. ITAR regulations need to be understood and met.

[00:03:22] And maybe, then maybe, you can delve into the launch contracts, licensing, and the list goes on. Our guest today is John Gordon, corporate attorney with Taft and Hollister. John is a space lawyer that focuses on the corporate side of the space arena. His direct experience in the industry includes being general corporate counsel to multiple launch industry companies,

[00:03:50] drafting launch contracts, executing corporate restructuring of launch-related companies, preparing for licensing and authorizations of application materials, and counseling clients on the regulatory compliance, including FAA, FCC, and NOAA, which you know I love some spaceport stuff, and international trade law, which is very important as we talk about global.

[00:04:17] Outside of his practice, he serves as a member of the Techstars Space Accelerator, which is where all the baby startups actually grow to be big companies. He is also a professor at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, and he teaches introduction to space law. So welcome to the podcast today. Hi, Izzy. Thanks so much for having me. I think you inflated me enough.

[00:04:46] I don't want to inflate myself too much further, but... Before we get started, let's do the legal disclaimer. Go for it. Yeah, it wouldn't be a legal show if I didn't give a legal disclaimer. Yeah, so first, I mean, the views are mine. They're not Tafts necessarily, so anything I express today, it's strictly my own. Second is, you know, anything I say is not legal advice. You shouldn't take your legal advice from a podcast ever, but even if it's from a lawyer, you still shouldn't.

[00:05:15] So anything I say or talk about today, every situation is different. You should always consult your own lawyer in situations. Get your professional to do that stuff. Yeah, I'm an attorney here at Taft. I'm based in Indianapolis. Got into the industry through Purdue University and their prestigious aerospace program, and then came on to Taft to work with. Taft recently acquired a firm out west called Sherman & Howard,

[00:05:40] and Sherman & Howard had a fairly prominent space practice due to the hub out there in Denver. So the partner I work with now, his name is Sean Cheadle. Sean was in-house counsel at Lockheed Martin Space for over 15 years. So between Sean and I, we've represented rocket companies, spaceport companies, satellite companies, kind of everything in between. I'd like to mention that today's episode is one for your business toolbox. You know, marketing is a very important function,

[00:06:09] and understanding the legal hurdles is critical for marketing professionals, as well as business C-suite people. One of our facets of marketing is public affairs and crisis management. And law is one of those background things that, if you don't attend to it, can turn into a crisis really quick. Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's always good to involve because you'll always have current stakeholders

[00:06:37] and potentially future stakeholders to think about whenever you're responding to something like that. So certainly something to keep in mind. But before we get into the law part of it, let's meet you first. Tell us a little bit about what you do. I know you told us a little bit about how you work with space law, but how did you get interested in space to begin with? Yeah, so I've always been into space since I was a little kid. I used to build model rockets with my grandfather.

[00:07:07] I grew up in Kentucky, how you and I got bluegrass blood in us. So growing up in a rural area, I still always really loved it. And I continued to pay attention. So I came up in the SpaceX age, you know, when they really started getting going. And eventually it kind of, when the industry really started booming, I was starting to come out of law school, you know, early 2020s-ish.

[00:07:33] Part 450, the launch regulations had just been redone because things had been getting so busy. And, you know, while separately in my personal life, I was loving space. I was listening to, I can't remember, it was one of these podcasts. But one of the professionals on there got on there and they just ran it and raved about Purdue's aerospace and propulsion programs and how important they were to the space industry. And I thought, oh my gosh, you know, they're right up the road. I'm practicing law here.

[00:08:01] And, you know, if there's going to be all these companies and this could be a hub, like this could be something to look into. So I just did some reaching out. Some of the professors were very welcoming and they invited me up. So I went and visited Purdue. And, yeah, they basically talked about how their enrollment in their aerospace engineering had tripled in the past years. And a lot of it was due to a big interest in business. They had students now who wanted to do startups.

[00:08:29] You know, 20 years ago, if you went to Purdue to do space, you were probably going to go work at NASA, right? It wasn't the case anymore. You had these kids wanting to start businesses in garages and make millions of dollars. And so there was a gap of education for those kids because a lot of the professors were from the old guard, right? They were the NASA folks. And so there was kind of a connection where I was a corporate and venture capital attorney, much more versed in the business end. They were much more versed in the tech end.

[00:08:56] And there was kind of a marriage there where if I wanted to come up and really kind of fill some gaps, they allowed me to do that. So, yeah, through that, got there, ended up getting a few clients. And then it snowballed into becoming kind of known for doing it. I was the only person doing it here in Indianapolis. And next thing I know, one of the biggest firms here acquire a space firm out west. And then the rest is kind of history. So it was kind of a marketing entrepreneurial play that worked out.

[00:09:23] You don't know this, but I started in an incubator. Back when I first started my marketing company, it was an environmental technology incubator in Chula Vista, California. Incubators were a great place to start. And I helped a lot of startups at that time. So one of the things you do is work within an accelerator program. So you want to tell us a little bit about that? Sure.

[00:09:51] So Techstars, more broadly, nationwide, is a very large accelerator that spans several industries in several regions. So there's Techstars Chicago. There's Techstars Columbus, Ohio, and everywhere. So LA is a pretty big chapter. And then they also have some industry-specific accelerators. So one of those is Techstars Space Accelerator. So it's based in Los Angeles. And there's a group of people that can be invited to be mentors.

[00:10:20] So what happens is these accelerators, whether it's once a year or whatever, they'll have a cohort. So young companies will apply and say, I want to come learn how to be a more mature business. And they'll get accepted to like a class. And they kind of get run through like a 10-week program. They get introduced to investors and potential customers and all these different people. And along the way, they will have chances to interact with mentors.

[00:10:45] And those can be people who ran successful businesses or like professional services like myself. So I will usually donate some time, basically kind of sit down and talk with them about just general red flags and landmines that are probably going to come up in their early years when to think about what, you know, such as like a IP assignment, right?

[00:11:08] So it's something early in a company that you sign and say, you know, as an employee, I understand everything I make here is yours, not mine, right? And that's something like young founders don't think about a lot until it's too late, until one of their co-founders says, actually, this IP is mine. It's not the company's, you know? So just little things like that and helping them kind of see these red flags ahead of time. So yeah, I spend some time both in person and virtually doing that. So the accelerator will usually kind of take them across the country.

[00:11:36] So if they stop somewhere like Denver or DC, I'll go see them and hang out. And then I try to play the connector and the networker, right? They're young businesses. So if I can help them, you know, connect with a potential customer or someone who could be a mentor to them that I know, you know, I like to play that role as well. So tell us a little bit about Taft, where you landed and are happily practicing space law. Yeah. So Taft is a nationwide firm. They call themselves the modern law firm.

[00:12:06] So we are Midwest-based, but now national in scope. There's over a thousand attorneys here. And we are what you would call a full-service firm. So, you know, you can have what's called boutique firms. So maybe two or three lawyers who only do ITAR, right? And they do it really well and they've done it forever, but that's kind of all they do. We're a full-service firm. So what that means is for my clients not only do if they come to me and, you know, they want to launch agreement drafted and negotiated.

[00:12:34] Not only can we do that, but also if they just need to fire an employee and they don't know how to go about that, I'll go grab an employment lawyer from my firm that I know very well and they'll help them with that. Or if they want to file for a patent or a trademark, I go grab a patent attorney to help them with that. So everything is kind of done here. And that goes from, you know, the beginning of formation through venture capital fundraising, which is a lot of what I do doing a series A or something like that, all the way up through the rest of your business.

[00:13:01] If you get acquired by one of the big guys and you do what's called an M&A, we'll do that too. So kind of what they call cradle to grave, the TAF firm will kind of do it beginning to end. We just had our big expansion into the Mountain West. So now we are in Denver, Albuquerque and Phoenix and kind of that area. We have really large offices in Indianapolis and then some in Ohio, but we also have offices in all the way over to D.C. So spread out, really big, but yeah, really great service. And I'm really happy.

[00:13:30] You had talked about a few of those things that we're going to unpack a little bit. So when you say IP, maybe some of the listeners don't know what an IP is and it stands for intellectual property. And this is your stuff. This is what makes you who you are as far as your product, your invention or anything like that. Do you want to talk a little bit about what IP is and maybe some things to look out for and how to protect it?

[00:13:59] Sure. If you founded a company, you should know what IP is. But if not, you know, intellectual property kind of divided into two halves. You have patents, which is the technical basically kind of license that you can get from the government that says, hey, you have now exclusivity to be able to use this thing. Then you have trademarks, which are your logos and things like that or the names of something. And no one else can use those basically identities.

[00:14:26] One of them requires a technical attorney to do. OK, so I'm I'm not an engineer. Most patent or all patent attorneys, because you have to be to to be before the what's called the USPTO. They are engineers first. They have some kind of undergraduate in chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, whatever. And then they'll get a law degree.

[00:14:47] And the reason why is so when these companies bring their IP to us, that lawyer has to be able to deeply understand the tech to be able to convince the USPTO to do what they wanted to do as far as, you know, give them the patent or whatever. You know, that's sort of the world of IP law that exists here in the extent of my knowledge, because I hand it off to my friends over across the hall.

[00:15:10] But as far as protection, you know, I touched on earlier, but IP assignment agreements, especially in startups, are super important. And you can have IP assignment clauses buried in employment agreements, if you'd like. And some some people have them as standalone agreements. But essentially, it just says, I agree and understand that everything I make here is the companies.

[00:15:33] It is, you know, space comps or whoever, you know, it is not mine because, you know, everybody gets along until they don't. Right. So if you're getting along early, as soon as you make a billion dollar idea, all of a sudden people start coming out of the woodwork and saying, actually, you know, I worked on that at home. And actually, you know, I brought a lot of that with me before I got here. And I actually don't think it's the companies. I think it's mine. And you need to pay me X number of dollars.

[00:15:58] And it's just something that I think a lot of startups we see, like, don't don't think about early enough, I guess. I mean, they know it kind of lingers out there, but it's it's just something to really your IP can be your entire company. And if you don't have it, you may not have a product. And if you don't have a product, you don't have a company. You know, it's just something to really think about to do very early on. And here's what I I've experienced, you know, and what I've seen in other startups is, oh, you know, they're my friend. They're never going to do that. You know, we're in it together.

[00:16:28] We don't need to worry about that. And then like every part, you know, like a lot of partnerships, including marriage, there's a divorce. And when the divorce gets ugly, the children are the ones that suffer. And the children in this particular case is the actual IP item. It's always important in all your legal setup. But, you know, your operating agreements and all those things, they have rules for the day that comes when people don't get along.

[00:16:55] You know, like what are what are the rules on voting and what are the rules on decisions in the company if we don't agree? And yeah, it's just it's easy to put to the wayside. All founders get very excited about the tech. They don't get very excited about all the legal rules. And that's totally understandable. But you need them in place for when when things go bad, not when things are necessarily going good. You had mentioned the trademarks as well. And that is something that is related to a lot of marketing things.

[00:17:21] So if you have a company and you have a name and you do your you carry on for several years and then somebody else takes that name and trades market, you all of a sudden have a huge problem because they can give you a cease and desist because they own the trademark for your company and or your company's name, I should say.

[00:17:46] So you want to talk a little bit about the importance of trademarks on your logos and your your brand identity? Yeah, sure. And preface that by saying I'm not a trademark lawyer and I'm also not a patent lawyer. But from a business perspective, obviously, you know, depending on especially if you've done well to get name recognition, you don't want to give that up for free. Right. And you certainly don't want someone capitalizing on it when you put the work in to build it.

[00:18:11] And, you know, it just it's one of those things that just goes hands in hand with your marketing. And it's it it gets put even more to the wayside because startups always have limited budgets. Right. And it's like they're not their number one priority is not necessarily to get a trademark on their name that they came up with in a garage. Like they they may not care that much.

[00:18:30] But the reality is, if you spend a lot of time customer facing building that brand, doing all that marketing and brand recognition to have it all thrown away or worse, someone else capitalize on it can be can be devastating. At the very least, a large waste of time, which startup founders just don't have.

[00:18:50] So protecting trademarks and logos and things like that are also very important, probably just as important as your actual product, because you could have the greatest product in the world. And if you're not good at marketing it, then you're not going to get anywhere. It just ends up being nearly just as important, in my opinion. Yeah, marketing is crucial. You can have a cure for cancer. And if nobody knows, it doesn't matter.

[00:19:13] That was one of the things I saw in the environmental technology incubator when I was first starting my my journey is that there were these incredible geniuses that were coming up with earth saving technology. And they assumed they didn't need marketing and that if they developed the cure for the world, that people would come streaming. And that's not just it's not the case. All right.

[00:19:40] So I want to touch on something else that you said, and that is ITAR. ITAR is a big thing, big deal when it comes to space companies. If you have somebody that works for you that is not ITAR compliant, it can cost you grants. It can cost you all kinds of things. Do you want to unpack what ITAR is and why companies that are in space need to know about it? Yeah, of course.

[00:20:07] So, yeah, ITAR is not space specific. But as far as startups go, it's like very much more focused on space industry versus a software startup or a fintech startup or something like that. At its core, for those who don't know anything about it at all, ITAR is part of the United States export controls regime. So there's actually two sections. There's EAR and then ITAR. EAR is more just kind of anything.

[00:20:36] Like if you send clothes to Iran, right, that's that's not military tech, but they still kind of want to know about it. Right. And they want to know where it's going, why you're doing it and et cetera. ITAR, specifically the International Trafting Arms Regulations, that's specifically for basically military tech. So it's much more highly regulated.

[00:20:56] And they're very concerned with not only where it's going, so like literally putting it in a box and shipping it somewhere, but also if you're sharing even technical data with someone who's not an American citizen. Right. So it can get as simple as technical data. You're in college and you're working on a rocket engine and you think it's cool and you share it with your foreign exchange student friend. You know, it can be deemed exports under the ITAR. Right.

[00:21:21] You could have exported, you know, controlled technology under the ITAR doing something even that simple. And even under the black letter law, you know, it'll say things like or it's basically leaving this technology, leaving the country in any manner is an export. Right. And to do that, you have to get a license through what's called the DDTC. There's all kinds of nuances there. Sometimes you can get what's called a commodity jurisdiction request.

[00:21:48] So if it's not really clear if you think what you're doing fits under ITAR or not, you can get an ITAR lawyer to basically fill out this giant request to the department to ask whether they think it falls under these regulations or go somewhere else. And you can get that. Anyone who manufactures anything that's controlled under the list for ITAR has to at least register with the DDTC.

[00:22:14] And then if they want to export, whether even if it's to allies like England or France or whoever, they have to get a license from the people at ITAR to do that. So I have some clients that they want to do deals with a different country. So they have to go ahead and get registered and they have to go ahead and get a license. And that's just how that works. So it comes up in hiring as well. SpaceX just had a lawsuit from the DOJ, I think a year or two ago on this. But it's not just that you can't hire foreign nationals.

[00:22:44] I mean, that's true. But the ITAR does have exceptions for Silees and refugees. So it's not as simple as just making a job posting and saying like, only U.S. citizens apply, please. You know, like that's you can still get in trouble for your discrimination on that front. You know, it's got a bunch of layers to it. But it's just something that space companies have to think about quite a bit earlier, you know, than everyone else. It can kind of sneak up on you.

[00:23:09] You can maybe be working with a college or university that one of the instructors that's working on the project is from China. And maybe you're not aware of that, but that will come around and bite you if you try to get some certain grants and that sort of thing and try to get stuff done. Yeah. And even like people at Purdue, like universities have very robust compliance programs for these reasons. I mean, there's people all over the world want to go to school there.

[00:23:35] Right. So they have to be careful about protecting the right things and making sure the right avenues are opened up and closed off as needed. So, yeah, it's very, very important to space companies specifically. The list is called the USML, the United States Munitions List. But basically lists like here are all the things we care about. And there's a specific category. I think it's 15 just for spacecraft or like here's all the space things we care about. It's like satellites, this, this, this.

[00:24:02] So it's just something that's that's pretty not specific to the industry, but but important. There's a very big defense component to it. So even things that you don't think have anything to do with the military or anything, it still goes into that domain like satellites. If we were to lose satellites, it would cripple this country. So that's considered to be a very important defense item.

[00:24:27] So that's why a lot of the space things that we do are defense related. Hold on to your boosters. We will be right back with John Gordon, corporate attorney with TAC after the briefest message from our sponsors. Please like and subscribe to the Space Marketing Podcast so you don't miss a thing.

[00:24:51] Today's episode is sponsored by University of Alabama Huntsville's The Business of Space Conference on February 23rd through the 25th. And I am privileged to be one of the speakers there. So see you there.

[00:25:06] I want to get a little bit into spaceports because I love some spaceports. And so tell us a little bit about how launch licensing and missions and what kind of things that they need to think about.

[00:25:35] Maybe some pitfalls that you've seen people trip over. Yeah. So spaceports are kind of their own animal and still really early in development, right? There's only what four, actually like four or five active, you know, working ones right now. So they've only given 14 licenses in the United States and one of them, you know, will never come to fruition. Yeah. And if you count the ones that are actually launching rockets, it's far fewer than 14. Yes. Yeah.

[00:26:04] It's so, you know, there's not a whole lot out there. But yeah. So the licensing regime under the FAA is not terrible because exactly what you said. There's not a ton of applicants out there. I mean, mainly there's a few things under the Commercial Space Launch Act. If you're doing what's called part 450 launches. So I guess I should say if you're doing like big, basically big rockets, orbital rockets over like certain metrics, it's like 200,000 pounds of thrust and like 150,000 kilometers or something like that.

[00:26:34] You go into part 450 territory. That's SpaceX. That's Firefly. That's Blue Origin. That's those people. There's also the whole world of suborbital rockets. So this is under the FAA, what's called part 101. So like Spaceport America, they do mostly part 101 stuff, right? They're doing hypersonics, suborbitals, things like that.

[00:26:58] So that distinction is important because under the Commercial Space Launch Act, there are a lot of really specific insurance requirements, indemnification requirements, but only for part 450. So only for or only for at least either part 450 licenses or what's called experimental permits, but basically big rockets. Basically, for your big rockets, you have more stringent requirements than if you're doing part 101.

[00:27:25] So as a spaceport, if you decide as a business model, like, well, we only want to do hypersonic suborbitals, right? Like, we don't even want to mess with orbital. That could reduce your regulatory burden versus if you say, like, well, no, I want to take on all these big ones. Like, I think we could do it. We got a great space, whatever. That's fine. But you're going to open yourself up to more regulatory and financial burden if you have higher insurance requirements or more indemnification risk or something like that.

[00:27:51] So it just depends on how deep in the game you want to go. Now, I know spaceports is kind of a mushy turn these days because there are companies that are really wanting to do space planes, right? So they're saying, well, you know, we kind of won't even be rocket launches in five years. There'll be plane launches and we're just going to take off from all these spaceports. You know, will that come to fruition? Maybe I'll defer to you whether you think that's going to happen or not. But for now, you know, rockets rule the day.

[00:28:18] There's no space planes really operating at the moment. So that's just kind of the analysis that spaceports kind of have to go through. There was one that was Virgin Orbit, and it successfully launched their rocket, but the rocket wasn't successful when it hit orbit. It did what rockets sometimes do, and it failed. So that was one example of a horizontal launch situation.

[00:28:47] So one of the things that I see a lot of opportunity in is the return market. Like Sierra Space has their dream chaser, which will bring manufactured goods back down from space. And then you also have the point-to-point, which is your hypersonic supersonics riding that orbit so that they can go around the Earth very fast. Like here to Australia in two hours.

[00:29:14] There is some movement in that front, so I'm very excited about it. Is there anything you want to add on to point-to-point or the return market? You know, it's reentry licensing is on the FAA's radar right now. So everybody kind of heard about the VARTA space, you know, ordeal where they had their drug manufacturing capsule. It was kind of stuck in orbit for a month or two while the FAA and VARTA kind of went back and forth about the safest way to land the thing.

[00:29:43] They got it down. Everything was fine. But, you know, there was some, I guess, feedback there about standardizing reentry licensing a little more. So VARTA got the first reentry, like just straight reentry license ever from the FAA.

[00:30:01] And, you know, the CEO wrote a piece talking about basically just he thought some things could be more standardized and not from the bottom up every time they go to the FAA. So, for example, I think he said, you know, we had to make our own U.S. population map and give it to the FAA. Why would the FAA not just have a standardized one that everyone uses, you know, and then we can plant, you know. And that's like nobody's fault necessarily.

[00:30:31] He's just trying to make suggestions to kind of streamline things because he's like, you know, this took a lot of time for us to do this while our hardware was stuck in orbit. Here are some ways we could reduce these problems. And as reentry tech gets better with DreamChaser and other technologies, they're going to have to streamline that more. It's like launch, right? The more cadence you get, the more you're going to have to streamline things or you're going to have a huge bottleneck.

[00:30:56] So the FAA has released their like basically list items that they're going to focus on this year. Reentry is one of them. So I'm confident they're going to come up with some more streamlined rules or processes on that front. But it definitely needs a little work for sure. The DreamChaser right now is at the Cape Canaveral waiting to be launched. And it has been for a couple of months.

[00:31:19] So cross our fingers and that it does it because that's really going to be a game changer as far as the return market and bring manufactured goods down. Such as human tissue and where you're going to, in the future, sometime in the future, we'll be able to 3D print a human heart or pancreas. And you'll be able to 3D print those things with a person's stem cells.

[00:31:48] So the rejection will not be a thing. In Kentucky itself, Space Tango is working on artificial retinas in space. And that will give people with macular degeneration eyesight is a huge thing. But that return market needs to be safe for these very delicate manufactured goods. And once that happens, then, yeah, a lot of industries will be impacted by it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:17] I got Eli Lilly just up the road right here. They're doing their work. They're the ones partnering with Redwire to work on a lot of that type stuff. It's very cool. Very exciting. Very exciting. So speaking of future, is there something that you see on the horizon that is very cool and has you excited? Man, that's a good question. You know, we've already like touched on it.

[00:32:39] I do think hypersonic travel, like point to point, is like super exciting, both for human travel, but also just logistics, you know, and like supply chain and that type of stuff. I think that's super exciting. Yeah. And I think deep space mining is up there of my favorite sci-fi-esque things that we might accomplish in our lifetimes. I love like Astro Forge and like what they're doing. I think all that is very cool. Was it Rob Meyerson started Interloon?

[00:33:09] So doing the helium three thing on the moon. Yeah. And so all of that to me, like mineral harvesting and all that out in space, I think it's super exciting too. You're the second person that's talked to me about that today. Oh, really? So I want to unpack that a little bit. Yes. I think it's an important thing that's coming up and it's very important with law because, you know, you have questions. If you're mining an asteroid, who owns it?

[00:33:40] You know, that's not something that is even earthbound where we have our borders and things like that. So you're opening up a whole new bucket just by going outside the atmosphere as it is. That kind of counts as the what do you see the next 10 years going as. Okay. So that was that one. So the last question that I have is what kind of thoughts do you want people to think about as they go through their day and mull around? Okay.

[00:34:08] This is something I need to think about for my company and how the law and legal issues may arise. So coming from a corporate lawyer, I guess the main thing is kind of encompasses kind of everything. When you do either a venture fundraising round or an acquisition, so another company's buying you, you'll have due diligence, right?

[00:34:33] So that buyer or that investor is going to turn every stone in your company and find out whether you have skeletons in your closet or not because they don't want to invest and they don't want to buy if you do. So if you think of things from the lens of like everything I'm doing is future due diligence, right?

[00:34:53] So, you know, there are a ton of you can imagine like ITAR things or government contract regulations that, you know, yeah, you know, companies will say, I don't really know if I'm doing it all 100% right. But are they really going to know like, you know, I'm just this little guy and, you know, no one's going to notice and no one's noticed so far and it's fine. That may be fine until you have an investor who's ready to give you $10 million. And then they find out you have a major ITAR violation that you've never controlled and you don't have a compliance program and nothing else.

[00:35:23] And they say, you know what, I'm out. Like, I thought I was in, but I'm out. Or, you know, God forbid you have a buyer ready to buy your company and make your dreams come true. And, you know, they find a major government contracts compliance problem or a CFIUS problem, which is like a foreign investment issue. So, you know, it's just all of these things and especially intellectual property because the investors want to know like this thing I'm buying, is it, am I going to control the IP or not? You know, am I buying something that someone else is going to have the rights?

[00:35:53] So if you think of everything as a lens through like everything you do is like future going to come up on a future due diligence somewhere. I think you probably think of your legal issues in a much different light than, you know, no harm, no foul. You know, as long as nobody notices, it's all good. But, yeah, I think that helps you prioritize your legal needs a little earlier than you probably would otherwise. Yeah, and it is an expense.

[00:36:16] It is an expense that a lot of your business owners don't think about because they're too busy having fun working with their product. Yeah, nobody wants to spend money on anything but the product. And I totally get that. I understand why that is. It breaks their heart to see money go elsewhere and not this awesome thing they're building. And I understand that. But some of it's just necessary. And if you're going to run a company, it's just part of it. So it's just an investment. Yeah, just a matter of deciding when and where that's important.

[00:36:43] A special thanks to John Gordon, corporate attorney with Taft, Statinius, and Hollister for sharing his journey to space. Be sure to check out his information listed in today's show notes. Please like and subscribe to the Space Marketing Podcast to help us get the word out about this incredible industry of space.

[00:37:04] Today's episode is sponsored by the University of Alabama Huntsville's The Business of Space Conference on February 23rd through the 25th. I am one of the speakers there. So hope to see you there. I hope that you have found this podcast useful for your journey as you reach for the stars.

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