Trademarks

Trademark Attorney in Dallas, Texas

Clearance searches, federal registration, USPTO refusals and brand disputes for Dallas businesses, at a flat fee quoted in writing before we begin.

Leavitt and Eldredge represents Dallas businesses through the full life of a trademark: clearance search, federal application, USPTO office actions, and enforcement when someone copies the brand. Our Dallas office is on Oak Lawn Avenue, our fee is a flat $1,200, and consultations are free.

The Dallas version of this problem

Dallas is dense with the kinds of businesses that live or die on a name: restaurant groups, fitness and wellness brands, consumer products, agencies, contractors, and a technology sector that keeps producing companies whose only real asset at launch is a word. Density is the issue. The more businesses operating in the same categories in the same metro, the higher the odds that the name you have already put on signage, packaging, and a storefront is confusingly close to one somebody else filed first.

The expensive version of that discovery arrives after the investment: after the vehicle wrap, after the packaging run, after two years of reviews attached to the name. The cheap version arrives during a clearance search that costs a fraction of any of it. The work below is organized around getting you to the cheap version.

What we handle for Dallas businesses

Clearance before you commit

We search the federal register, pending applications, and common law use for marks that could block yours or that yours could infringe. The output is a plain answer about risk, not a database dump. If the name is a problem, you learn it while changing course is still a design decision rather than a legal one.

Filing the federal application

We prepare and file the application, which means choosing between a word mark and a design mark, identifying the right classes, and drafting a goods and services description that is broad enough to cover how your business will grow without colliding with registrations you did not need to fight. The mechanics of that process are laid out on our trademark registration page.

Answering the USPTO

Office actions are routine, not a sign the application has failed. Most are a likelihood of confusion refusal, a descriptiveness refusal, or a problem with the specimen you filed. Each one carries a response deadline that ends the application if it passes. We respond on your behalf and keep the docket, so the deadline is not sitting in a business owner’s inbox competing with payroll.

Enforcement, and defense

Registration is the paperwork; enforcement is the point. We send and answer cease and desist letters, file and defend oppositions and cancellations at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, and litigate infringement in federal court. If a larger company has accused your Dallas business of infringing, that is the same conversation viewed from the other side, and it is one to have before you reply to them.

Filing and fighting in the same building

Most trademark work is sold as a filing service. That is fine right up until the day the mark matters, at which point the filing firm refers you out, a new firm takes a retainer, and weeks go into teaching that firm the history of a brand it has never seen.

Our firm does not split that. Brandon Leavitt, the firm’s lead litigator, is admitted to practise in all four Texas federal district courts, Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western, and has argued before federal district courts, the Federal Circuit, and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. He has also been approved to litigate in federal courts in Arizona, Utah, and California. Dallas news station WFAA Channel 8 sought his commentary on the Yellowstone trademark dispute between Taylor Sheridan and Cole Hauser. When a Dallas client needs to enforce a mark, the person taking that case already has the file.

What it costs, before you commit to anything

A federal trademark registration is a flat $1,200. You get the number in writing before work begins, and payment by installment is available. If your matter is a dispute rather than a filing, we scope it and quote it in writing the same way rather than starting an hourly clock and seeing where it lands. Our full price list, including patents at $2,000 for a provisional and $5,000 for a nonprovisional, and Texas LLC formation at $1,600, is on the cost and fees page.

Working with us from Dallas

Our Dallas office is at 3838 Oak Lawn Avenue, Suite 1000, Dallas, TX 75219, on the corner of Oak Lawn Avenue and Blackburn Street, reachable at 817-522-4035. The firm’s principal office is in Arlington, and we also serve Fort Worth, Allen, Carrollton, Mansfield, Houston, and The Woodlands. Most of the work on a registration happens by email and phone wherever your attorney sits, so choose the firm on the strength of the work, not the drive time, and use the office when meeting in person is genuinely useful.

Consultations are free. Call 844-728-3680, text 682-201-8577, or use the contact page. We answer Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm CST.

Common questions

Frequently asked

How much does a trademark attorney cost in Dallas?
Our fee for a federal trademark registration is a flat $1,200, quoted in writing before work starts. Dallas firms that bill hourly commonly run from a few hundred dollars an hour upward, and a registration that runs most of a year on an open meter is difficult to budget for. Ask any firm you speak to which structure they use.
Someone in Dallas is already using my business name. What can I do?
That depends on who used it first, in what territory, and for what goods or services. If they registered federally, they hold a nationwide claim and your options narrow quickly. If neither of you has registered, the analysis turns on who used the name in commerce first and where. Bring us the facts before you send anything, because a badly aimed demand letter can create the dispute you were trying to avoid.
Do I need a trademark attorney in Dallas specifically?
Trademark registration is a federal process, so any United States attorney registered to practise before the USPTO can file it for you regardless of where they sit. Local matters for the parts that are not federal filings: meeting in person, knowing the Dallas market your brand competes in, and being able to appear in the Northern District of Texas if the matter becomes a lawsuit.
Where are Dallas trademark disputes heard?
Federal trademark infringement cases from Dallas are filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Disputes about whether a mark should register at all, such as oppositions and cancellations, are heard by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board at the USPTO rather than by a court. Our lead litigator has argued before both.
Do you handle disputes as well as filings?
Yes, and that is the difference worth asking about. Many firms file trademarks and refer the fight elsewhere. Brandon Leavitt is admitted in all four Texas federal district courts and has argued before the Federal Circuit and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, so a Dallas client who needs to enforce a mark does not start over with a new firm and a new retainer.
How long before my Dallas trademark is registered?
Roughly eight months to a year when the application runs smoothly, with an examining attorney assigned a few months after filing and a publication period before registration. Office actions extend it. Your rights run from your filing date, not the registration date, which is why filing early matters more than finishing fast.

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