Trademark Registration: Cost, Timeline and How to File

Trademark registration is the federal process of recording your brand name, logo, or slogan with the USPTO so you own it nationwide. A registration with our firm is a flat $1,200, and most applications reach registration in roughly eight months to a year.

What federal registration gives you that using the name does not

You get some trademark rights simply by using a name in business. They are called common law rights, and they are real, but they stop at the edge of the territory where you actually trade. A bakery selling under a name in Fort Worth has rights in Fort Worth. It has nothing to stand on when a company in Seattle adopts the same name, and nothing to stop that company from registering it federally and then asking the bakery to stop expanding.

Federal registration changes four things:

Your claim covers the entire United States, including markets you have not entered yet.
Your mark appears in the USPTO database, so the next person who searches before filing finds you and usually goes elsewhere.
You can bring an infringement case in federal court and use remedies that common law rights do not reach.
You can use the circled R symbol, which is reserved for registered marks and is improper before registration.

Registration is also an asset on the balance sheet. It can be sold, licensed, or pledged, and it is one of the first things a buyer or investor asks to see during diligence on a consumer brand.

What can and cannot be registered

A trademark has to do one job: tell a customer where a product came from. The further a mark gets from simply describing the product, the easier it registers and the more it is worth defending.

Invented words are the strongest. They mean nothing until you give them meaning, so nobody else has a legitimate reason to use them.
Arbitrary or suggestive names are strong. A common word used for something unrelated, or a name that hints at a benefit without stating it, registers readily.
Descriptive names are the hard case. A mark that states what the product is, what it does, where it is from, or who it is for is refused unless you can show the public already associates it with you specifically.
Generic names can never be registered. No one gets exclusive rights to the ordinary word for the thing itself.

Descriptive refusals are the single most common surprise for business owners, because a descriptive name is exactly what marketing instinct produces. If that is the name you are committed to, there are routes forward, and we cover them on our page about descriptive trademarks.

Deciding what to register: the name, the logo, or both

These are two different filings with two different scopes. A word mark protects the name itself in any font, color, or styling, which means a rebrand of the artwork does not weaken it. A design mark protects the specific logo as drawn, which is narrower but covers artwork a word mark cannot.

For most businesses the word mark is the first priority, because the name is what customers say out loud and type into a search bar. Brands that carry a distinctive symbol, or that trade heavily on packaging, add the design mark as a second filing. We tell you which order makes sense for your budget rather than quoting both by reflex.

Classes, and why they drive the price

The USPTO divides commerce into classes of goods and services, and your registration only reaches the classes you file in. An apparel brand that also runs a retail store is operating in two classes. A software company that sells a product and also does consulting is operating in two. Filing narrowly is cheap and leaves gaps; filing broadly costs more per class and invites conflicts with existing registrations you did not need to fight.

The work worth paying for is drafting the description of goods and services precisely: broad enough to cover how the business will actually grow, specific enough that the examiner does not reject it and a competitor cannot squeeze in beside it.

What trademark registration costs

Our fee is a flat $1,200. That covers the clearance search, preparing and filing the application, and routine correspondence with the examining attorney. The quote is in writing before work starts, and payment by installment is available. We do not bill by the hour on a registration, because a process that runs the better part of a year with no ceiling on the meter is not something a small business can plan around.

Full pricing for every service we offer, including patents and LLC formation, is on our cost and fees page.

How long it takes, stage by stage

Roughly eight months to a year when nothing goes wrong. The sequence is consistent:

Clearance search. Before you file, we look for registered and pending marks that could block yours. This is the cheapest point at which to change your mind.
Filing. The application goes in with your goods and services description and a basis for filing, either actual use in commerce or a genuine intent to use.
Examination. A USPTO examining attorney is assigned a few months later and reviews the application against the register and the statute.
Office action, if one issues. A written refusal or request for correction. We respond on your behalf within the deadline the office sets.
Publication. The mark is published so that anyone who believes it would harm their own brand can oppose it.
Registration. The certificate issues. If you filed on intent to use, you first file proof that the mark is now in real commercial use.

The detail of each step is on our trademark application page, and the search stage is covered on trademark search.

If the USPTO refuses it: office actions and oppositions

A refusal is not the end of the application, and it is common enough that we treat it as part of the process rather than a surprise. The examining attorney issues an office action explaining the problem, and you have three months to respond, extendable once to six months for a fee. Miss that window and the application goes abandoned, taking the filing fee and the priority date with it.

Most office actions fall into a few buckets. A likelihood of confusion refusal says your mark is too close to something already on the register, and the answer is either an argument that the goods and channels do not overlap, an amendment narrowing what you claim, or a consent agreement with the other owner. A descriptiveness refusal says the mark just describes the product, and the response is usually an argument that it is suggestive rather than descriptive, or a move to the Supplemental Register while the mark builds distinctiveness. Specimen refusals are the easiest to fix: the sample you submitted did not show the mark used on the actual goods, so you send one that does.

Clearing the examiner is not the last hurdle. Once a mark is approved it is published in the Official Gazette for thirty days, and during that window anyone who believes they would be harmed can file an opposition with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. A TTAB proceeding runs like litigation, with pleadings, discovery, and testimony, which is why the attorney who prosecutes the application and the attorney who would defend it sitting in the same firm saves a handoff. The firm has appeared before the Board, including Verify Him v. Lanning, TTAB opposition 91252600.

Office action responses on marks we filed are covered by the flat fee. If you filed on your own and arrived here holding a refusal, we take those over too; bring the office action and the deadline on it when you call.

Keeping the registration alive

A federal trademark can last forever, which is unusual among intellectual property rights, but only if it is maintained. You file a declaration of continued use between the fifth and sixth year, a combined declaration and renewal between the ninth and tenth year, and a renewal every ten years after that. Marks are cancelled every week for missed maintenance filings on brands that were still actively trading. We docket those dates for our clients so the reminder does not depend on anyone remembering.

Who should file it

You can file on your own. The reason many self-filed applications stall is that the USPTO examines every one of them, and the fees paid on a refused application are not returned. If you are domiciled outside the United States, the USPTO requires a licensed United States attorney to file on your behalf.

Leavitt and Eldredge is an intellectual property firm, not a general practice that also does trademarks. We have been registered with the USPTO since 2008, we quote flat fees in writing before we start, and the attorney who files your mark is in the same firm as the litigator who would enforce it. Consultations are free. Call 844-728-3680 or use the contact page to start.

Common questions

Frequently asked

How much does trademark registration cost?

A federal trademark registration with Leavitt and Eldredge is a flat $1,200. That covers the clearance search, preparing and filing the application, and routine correspondence with the examining attorney. You receive the full quote in writing before any work begins, so the cost does not move once you have approved it.

How long does trademark registration take?

Most applications take roughly eight months to a year when the filing goes smoothly. The USPTO assigns an examining attorney a few months after you file, then the mark is published for opposition before it registers. An office action or an opposition stretches that timeline. Your rights date back to your filing day, not the day the certificate issues.

Do I have to register a trademark to own it?

No. Using a name in commerce creates common law rights, but those rights reach only the geographic area where you actually trade. Federal registration is what gives you a nationwide claim, a public record other filers will find, the right to sue in federal court, and the circled R symbol. Without it, somebody who registers first can push you out of markets you have not entered yet.

What stops a trademark from registering?

The two common refusals are a likelihood of confusion with a mark that is already registered or pending, and a mark that merely describes what the product is or does. Specimen problems are a third, where the sample you submit does not show the mark used on the actual goods. A clearance search before filing catches most conflict problems while changing course is still cheap.

Do I need to register in more than one class?

It depends on what you sell. Classes are the USPTO categories for goods and services, and your registration only covers the classes you pay for. A clothing brand that also runs a retail site generally needs two. We work out the smallest set of classes that actually covers your business, because each additional class adds $350 rather than broad free coverage.

How long does a federal trademark last?

Indefinitely, as long as you keep using it and file the maintenance paperwork. You file a declaration of continued use between the fifth and sixth year after registration, a combined declaration and renewal between the ninth and tenth year, and a renewal every ten years after that. Missing a maintenance deadline cancels the registration even though the brand is still in use.