Registering your brand the right way, from search to filing.
You are building something with a name on it. Filing an application is the easy part, and it is the part the form-filling services sell you. The work that matters is the judgment around it: whether the mark is worth filing, how it should be described, and who is watching the deadlines after it goes in.
That fee buys the legal judgment around the application, not the typing: what the mark should cover, how it should be filed, and someone holding the deadlines until it registers.
20+ years, IP and business litigation. USPTO filing fee for your first class included, not added later.
An application is not a strategy
Anyone can complete a USPTO form. The form is free to look at and the instructions are public. If filing were the whole job, there would be no reason to involve a lawyer, and the document services would be a perfectly sensible purchase.
But the questions that decide whether you end up with an enforceable registration are questions of judgment. Is the mark strong enough to protect, or is it a description of what you sell wearing a brand’s clothing? What goods and services should the application actually cover, given where the business is going rather than only where it is today? And when the USPTO writes back, is someone reading it who knows which letters are routine and which ones are a refusal?
Those answers shape the filing. Filed carelessly, an application can be technically granted and still leave you with a registration that is narrower than your business, hard to enforce, or vulnerable to challenge from someone who was there first.
The real cost of a low-cost filing
The filing services advertise a low number and file whatever you type in. They do not tell you the mark is already taken, or that it is too descriptive to register, because catching that is not the service you bought. You find out months later, from an examining attorney.
By then you have paid the fee, waited, and in the worst cases put the name on packaging, signage, and a website. The application was the cheap part. Rebranding is not.
How the work actually runs.
Knockout search
Before filing, the mark is run against federal registrations and pending applications to catch the obvious conflicts. This is included. It is a screen, not a full clearance opinion, and it will not surface unregistered common law use.
Candid read on what came back
You get told what the knockout shows, including when the answer is that this mark looks like a problem. Sometimes the right advice is to change the name now, while it costs a conversation instead of a rebrand. Where the stakes justify going deeper, a comprehensive clearance search is offered as a separate step rather than assumed.
Filing strategy
Which class, what description of goods and services, which filing basis, and whether the mark should be filed as a word mark, a design, or both. These choices set the boundaries of what you own. They are decisions, not form fields.
Preparation and filing
The application is drafted and filed with the USPTO, with the specimen and description built to survive examination rather than to get through the form quickly.
Docketing and deadlines through registration
The application goes on the firm docket. USPTO deadlines are tracked and calendared through to registration, and routine correspondence from the examining attorney is handled at no additional charge. Applications go abandoned over unread email. Yours will not be one of them.
What the flat fee covers
INCLUDED
- Preliminary knockout search of federal registrations and pending applications
- Filing strategy: class, description of goods and services, filing basis, mark format
- Preparation and filing of your application for one class
- The USPTO filing fee for that class
- Monitoring and maintaining the application on the firm docket
- Tracking and calendaring USPTO deadlines through to registration
- Non-substantive Office Action responses, handled at no additional charge
The government fee for your first class is inside the $1,750. Nothing from the USPTO arrives on top of it.
PRICED SEPARATELY
- Comprehensive clearance search — $500, covering federal, state, and common law sources with a written risk assessment
- Substantive Office Action responses — $1,200, for refusals requiring legal argument
- Additional classes, which require their own USPTO filing fees
- Appeals to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
- Opposition or cancellation proceedings
- Foreign or international filings
Every one of these is a stated number or a quote you see before it starts. Complex matters or multiple refusals are quoted separately.
The two things that are not in the flat fee.
Both are priced, not estimated. You will know what either costs before you decide whether you want it.
COMPREHENSIVE CLEARANCE SEARCH
The knockout search inside your filing fee catches conflicts in the federal database. This goes further: federal, state, and common law sources, followed by a written assessment of what the risks actually are. Common law rights are real rights and they are not in any database you can search yourself.
Recommended where a naming conflict would be costly to fix
SUBSTANTIVE OFFICE ACTION RESPONSE
If the examining attorney issues a refusal that requires legal argument, such as likelihood of confusion or descriptiveness, that response is its own work at a stated flat fee. Complex matters or multiple refusals get quoted separately.
Only if a substantive refusal issues
NON-SUBSTANTIVE OFFICE ACTIONS ARE INCLUDED
Not every letter from the USPTO is a refusal. Requests to clarify your goods and services, disclaimer requirements, and procedural or formatting issues are handled as part of your filing at no additional charge. You are not billed for the paperwork your own application generates.
A registration certificate is not the goal. The goal is owning something you can actually enforce against the person who copies you in three years.
Is this worth doing properly?
THIS FITS IF
The name is going on the business for the long run. You are putting money into the brand, or you are about to, and you want to know it is yours before the signage, the packaging, and the domain all point at it. The cost of being wrong here is a rebrand.
BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF IF
The name is provisional, the business is still finding its shape, or you are not sure the brand outlives the year. Filing early on a name you will abandon is money spent twice. A Strategy Session is the cheaper way to work out whether now is the moment.
Questions brand owners ask
The filing services charge a few hundred dollars. Why is this more?
Because a few hundred dollars buys data entry, and their price is quoted before the government fee, so the number you see is not the number you pay. The $1,750 includes the USPTO fee for your first class, the judgment about how the mark should be described and filed, and someone tracking your deadlines through to registration. It also covers the routine Office Actions that filing services charge you again to handle.
I searched the USPTO database myself and it was clear.
That is a useful start and it is not the whole picture. Trademark rights in the United States come from use, not only from registration. Someone using a similar mark in your industry without ever registering it can still block you, and they will not appear in the database you searched. The knockout search included in your filing covers the same federal ground more carefully. The $500 comprehensive search is what goes past it, into state and common law use.
What if the search finds a problem?
Then you have learned it now, for a fraction of what learning it later costs. You will get a straight read on whether the problem is fatal or navigable. Sometimes the answer is to adjust the mark, sometimes it is to narrow the filing, and sometimes it is to pick a different name before it is on anything. If the knockout raises questions it cannot settle, that is exactly when the comprehensive search earns its $500.
How many classes do I need?
Fewer than most people assume, and the answer depends on what you actually sell rather than everything you might one day sell. The $1,750 covers one class including its government fee. Additional classes require their own USPTO filing fees. If your business genuinely spans more, you will get a straight answer about which ones earn their cost before you commit.
What happens if the USPTO writes back?
It depends what they say. Requests to clarify your goods and services, disclaimer requirements, and procedural issues are handled as part of your filing at no extra charge. A substantive refusal that needs legal argument is separate work at a flat $1,200. You will be told which one you have, not billed as though every letter were the same.
How long does registration take?
Months, not weeks, and the USPTO timeline is not something any attorney controls. What is controllable is whether the application is built to move through examination without avoidable objections, which is where the time is usually lost.
Can I use the mark before it registers?
Generally yes, and use is what creates rights in the first place. The clearance search matters precisely because it tells you whether using it is safe, which is a question you want answered before the brand is on your storefront.
Putting a name on something that matters?
Send the mark and a sentence about what the business sells. You will get a straight read on whether it is worth filing before anything is filed.
Already been refused? Office Action responses are handled separately.
Practical legal counsel for businesses building something worth protecting.