How to trademark a business name: USPTO steps and fees

What it means to trademark a business name

To trademark a business name, you register it with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for the goods or services you sell under it. In practice you search for conflicting names, file an online application, pay $350 per class, answer any questions from the examining attorney and wait out the opposition period. A federal registration gives you rights throughout the entire United States and its territories.

A trademark protects the name as you use it in trade, and the protection is narrow: rights cover only how the name is used with your specific goods or services. In the USPTO's own example, a woodworking business's logo trademark does not let it stop others from using a similar logo for non-woodworking goods or services.

Under USPTO guidance, you become a trademark owner as soon as you start using the trademark with your goods or services, but rights from use alone apply only to the geographic area in which you provide your goods or services. A state trademark registration gives you rights in that state only. A federal registration also brings a legal presumption that you own the trademark and have the right to use it, plus the right to bring a lawsuit concerning the trademark in federal court. The USPTO's own summary: registration is optional, but a registered trademark provides broader rights and protections than an unregistered one.

This page is general information, not legal advice. Trademark and business-name rules vary by state, and USPTO employees cannot give you legal advice, so ask a trademark attorney about your own case.

LLC, DBA and trademark: separate registrations

Forming an LLC and trademarking a name are separate steps. The Small Business Administration describes four different ways to register your business name: an entity name, a trademark, a DBA and a domain name. It also notes that entity name, trademark, DBA and domain registrations are legally independent.

The SBA notes that each state may have different rules about what your entity name can be, and that DBA requirements vary by business structure as well as by state, county and municipality, so check with your local filing office. A name that is free in your state's business records can still be someone else's trademark, which is why the search step below matters.

How to trademark a business name with the USPTO, step by step

These steps follow the USPTO's application process for a US-based applicant filing one business name.

1. Check that the name is distinctive

   The USPTO describes strong trademarks as suggestive, fanciful, or arbitrary. Fanciful trademarks are invented words, and arbitrary trademarks are actual words that have no association with the underlying goods or services. Weak names are hard to register: generic trademarks are not federally registrable, and descriptive names are registrable only in certain circumstances, such as gaining distinctiveness through extensive use over many years.

2. Search for similar names

   Search the USPTO's trademark database for names that are the same as or similar to yours on related goods or services. This matters because being too similar to an already registered trademark is one of the most common reasons applications are rejected. The examining attorney checks only conflicting trademarks in the federal database, so the USPTO also encourages you to search the internet, state trademark databases and business name databases for similar trademarks.

3. Choose a filing basis

   Choose use in commerce if you already sell under the name across state lines. That means using the trademark to sell or transport goods out of state, or to provide services to customers who live outside your state, and you will need a specimen showing how you use the trademark. Choose intent to use if you have a bona fide intent to use the trademark in commerce within the next three to four years.

4. Describe your goods or services and pick classes

   Goods and services are grouped into 45 classes, numbered 1 to 45, and the fee is charged per class. The USPTO lists pre-approved descriptions of goods or services, with their classes, in its ID Manual. Using one of those descriptions avoids the free-form text surcharge of $200 per class.

5. File online and pay the fee

   File the application in Trademark Center, the USPTO system where you file a new trademark application and pay application-related fees. To log in, you need a USPTO.gov account with multifactor authentication and a verified identity. Pay $350 per class and fill in every required field: an application that leaves out required information pays a surcharge of $100 per class.

6. Answer any office action

   An examining attorney reviews the application. If there is a problem, you receive an office action, an official letter that explains why registration is being refused and suggests fixes where available, and you must respond within three months from the date it issues. An optional extension of that deadline costs $125. If you do not respond in time, the application is considered abandoned.

7. Wait out the opposition period

   If the examining attorney approves the name, it is published in the USPTO's weekly online Trademark Official Gazette. Publication starts a 30-day period in which anyone who believes the registration would harm them can oppose it.

8. Register, or file a statement of use

   If nobody opposes the name, a use-based application registers. An intent-to-use application gets a notice of allowance instead, and you must file a statement of use within six months of the notice of allowance date and pay $150 per class. If you are not selling yet, you can request extensions at $125 per class each, up to a total of five extension requests.

9. Keep the registration alive

   Keep using the name, file a declaration of use between years 5 and 6 after registration, and file a declaration of use with a renewal within one year before the end of every 10-year period after the registration date. If you miss these filings, the registration will expire or be canceled.

How much it costs to trademark a business name

USPTO fees are charged per class of goods or services, so the total depends on how many classes you file in and which filing basis you choose. The table lists the electronic filing fees a small seller is most likely to meet, from the USPTO's fee schedule. Attorney fees are separate.

Example: a US seller files one business name for a clothing line only, on a use basis, picks a description from the ID Manual and gets no office action. All the goods fall in one class, so the base filing fee is $350. If the same seller also offers custom t-shirt printing, that service sits in a second class and the base fee becomes $700, the USPTO's own example.

Example: the same name filed on an intent-to-use basis in one class adds the statement of use fee of $150 per class later, plus $125 per class for each extension needed before the clothing goes on sale.

Private companies also offer to file trademarks for a fee. The USPTO warns that trademark filing companies are not the same as law firms, and that if you use one, you pay their separate service fees as well as the USPTO's fees.

How long it takes to trademark a business name

The USPTO says the process usually takes 12 to 18 months, and that there is no guarantee a trademark will ever register. After publication, it can take three to four months to hear that the name has registered or moved to the next stage. Office actions, oppositions and statement of use extensions all add time, and the USPTO publishes current processing wait times that show how long a filing could take.

The USPTO also notes that accurate filings can speed up the process. For a small seller, that means picking a distinctive name, searching before you file, using an ID Manual description and answering any office action well before the deadline.

Using TM and ® with your business name

You can use TM for goods or SM for services, even before you file an application. The symbol lets consumers and competitors know you are claiming the trademark as yours.

Switch to ® once the trademark is registered with the USPTO, and use it only with the goods or services listed in the federal registration. Until the registration issues, stay with TM or SM.

Registration also does not police the name for you: the USPTO is not an enforcement agency, so you are responsible for pursuing any infringing users. Watch for sellers using similar names on similar goods, and keep records of when and where you first used yours.

Do you need a lawyer to trademark a business name?

Under USPTO rules, applicants domiciled in the United States are not required to have an attorney, but foreign-domiciled applicants must be represented by a U.S.-licensed attorney.

Filing on your own is most manageable when the name is distinctive, your search found no similar names and everything you sell fits one class. An attorney is worth considering if the search turns up similar names, if you sell across several classes, or if you receive an office action you do not understand. The USPTO notes that an attorney can advise you on your trademark's registrability, prepare your application and respond to the USPTO.

For lower-cost help, the USPTO notes that its Law School Clinic Certification Program lets law students enrolled in a clinic practice before the USPTO, and it lists that program under free or reduced-fee legal services.

Where Nation fits

Questions about trademarking a business name