To make a family crest legal in the United States, register the artwork with the U.S. Copyright Office and, if you use the design commercially, register it as a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. There is no government heraldic authority in this country, so intellectual property law is the actual mechanism that gives a crest legal standing. Anyone can design and adopt a coat of arms without permission; the work of “making it legal” is protecting it from copying and misuse.
The American Heraldry Society states it has always been “perfectly legal and legitimate for any person in the United States to design, adopt, and use an original coat of arms of his or her choice.” The flip side is that no state or federal law protects armorial bearings as such. A crest granted by the English College of Arms and one you drew yourself have identical legal footing on American soil. Both stand or fall on the intellectual property rights you build around them.1The American Heraldry Society. Guidelines for Heraldic Practice
Start With an Original Design, Not a Surname Purchase
Companies that sell “your family’s coat of arms” based only on your last name are selling decoration, not a legally meaningful emblem. Coats of arms in the British Isles, former Commonwealth nations, and most of Western Europe were historically granted to specific individuals, not to everyone sharing a surname. A design associated with a 14th-century John Smith has no bearing on an unrelated Smith family today. Ask one of these sellers for documentation proving the arms are authorized for everyone with that surname and no such document exists, because grants have never worked that way.
Selling products under a false claim of personal authenticity can also run into federal law. Under 39 U.S.C. § 3005, the Postal Service can issue cease-and-desist orders against schemes to obtain money through the mail by means of false representations.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 39 – 3005 If you want a crest that is genuinely yours, design an original one or commission a heraldic artist. Professional heraldic design work typically costs between $400 and $1,100.
Check for Conflicts Before You File
Before spending money on legal protection, confirm your design doesn’t duplicate someone else’s. The USPTO’s Trademark Electronic Search System lets you search for similar logos already registered as trademarks. For heraldic conflicts, the rolls maintained by the American College of Heraldry and major foreign heraldic authorities help, though no single database covers everything. A heraldic artist familiar with existing grants reduces the risk of unintentional duplication.
One design note that matters for legal protection: copyright covers a specific artistic rendering, not the underlying heraldic concept. If your design description calls for a red shield with a gold lion, copyright stops others from copying your particular painting but not from commissioning their own red-shield-and-gold-lion artwork in a different style. That is one reason trademark protection often does more work for a crest you plan to use publicly.
Register the Artwork With the U.S. Copyright Office
Copyright is the simplest form of legal protection because it attaches automatically the moment you create the artwork. You don’t need to file anything for the copyright to exist. Registration, however, unlocks the enforcement powers that make copyright useful.
Why Registration Matters
Without registration, you cannot file a copyright infringement lawsuit in federal court. You also cannot recover statutory damages or attorney’s fees unless you registered the work before the infringement began or within three months of first publishing it.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 17 – 412 Statutory damages allow a court to award between $750 and $30,000 per infringed work, up to $150,000 for willful infringement, without you having to prove actual financial losses. Registration within five years of first publication also makes the certificate presumptive evidence that your copyright is valid.
How to File
Register online through the Electronic Copyright Office (eCO) system at copyright.gov. The filing fee is $45 if you are the sole author and sole claimant of a single work not made for hire. Otherwise, the standard application fee is $65.4U.S. Copyright Office. Fees Paper filing on Form VA (Visual Arts) costs $125. You upload a digital copy of the crest and identify yourself as the author. Electronic filings process significantly faster than paper.
What Copyright Covers
Copyright protects your specific artistic rendering for the life of the author plus 70 years.5U.S. Copyright Office. Chapter 3 Duration of Copyright It prevents others from reproducing, distributing, or making derivatives of that particular illustration. It does not protect the heraldic concept itself, so a rival artistic interpretation of the same design description falls outside its reach.
Register a Trademark if You Use the Crest Commercially
If you put the crest on merchandise, use it as a business logo, or otherwise identify goods or services with it, trademark law offers broader and potentially permanent protection. A trademark can last indefinitely as long as you keep using it in commerce and file the required maintenance documents.
What Counts as Commercial Use
Federal trademark registration requires you to actually sell goods or services bearing the crest in interstate commerce. Placing the design on products sold across state lines, displaying it on a website where customers can buy, or using it on business cards and advertising for services all qualify. A personal website that displays the crest but sells nothing does not. If you plan to launch but aren’t selling yet, an intent-to-use application reserves your rights while you prepare.
How to File a Federal Trademark Application
Apply through the USPTO’s Trademark Center. As of 2025, the agency replaced its former TEAS Plus and TEAS Standard options with a single base application fee of $350 per class of goods or services.6United States Patent and Trademark Office. Summary of 2025 Trademark Fee Changes Additional fees apply if the application is incomplete ($100 per class) or if you write custom descriptions of goods and services instead of choosing from the pre-approved list ($200 per class).7United States Patent and Trademark Office. Additional Fees for Trademark Applications Using the Trademark ID Manual when filing keeps costs down.
You also submit a specimen showing the crest as it is actually used in commerce. For goods, that can be a photo of the mark on the product, on labels or tags, on packaging, or on a webpage where the product appears alongside a price and a way to purchase.8United States Patent and Trademark Office. Specimens A mockup won’t be accepted. The specimen must show real-world use.
Keep the Registration Alive
Registration is not a one-time event. Between the fifth and sixth year after registration, you file a Section 8 declaration of continued use with a fee of $325 per class. At the ten-year mark, you file a combined renewal and declaration of use for $650 per class, and repeat every ten years after that. Missing a deadline triggers a six-month grace period with an extra $100 fee. Missing the grace period cancels the registration.9United States Patent and Trademark Office. Trademark Fee Information This is where many owners lose rights they paid real money to acquire.
State Trademark Registration
If your commercial use stays within a single state, you can register the crest as a trademark with that state’s secretary of state instead of the USPTO. Filing fees typically run $50 to $70 per class. State registration won’t help you in other states, but it establishes rights within your state’s borders at a fraction of the federal cost.
Foreign Grants and Private Registries: What They Do and Don’t Do
Several countries maintain official heraldic bodies, and some Americans pursue formal recognition through them. The College of Arms in England, the Court of the Lord Lyon in Scotland, and the Canadian Heraldic Authority are the best known.10American College of Heraldry. Heraldic Organizations A personal grant from the College of Arms costs £9,250 as of January 2025.11American College of Heraldry. Grants vs. Registrations The Canadian Heraldic Authority charges $435 CAD but generally requires Canadian citizenship or permanent residency. The Court of the Lord Lyon grants to those with a Scottish connection and, unusually, has statutory enforcement power within Scotland.
None of that changes what your crest is worth legally in the United States. American courts do not recognize the “law of arms,” and no U.S. statute gives foreign heraldic grants priority over domestic intellectual property rights.1The American Heraldry Society. Guidelines for Heraldic Practice Even after a foreign grant, you still need copyright registration, trademark registration, or both to enforce anything here.
Private U.S. registries fill part of that gap. The American College of Heraldry registers assumed arms for a flat fee of $395, which includes design assistance.11American College of Heraldry. Grants vs. Registrations The College is candid that a registration is not a sovereign grant and would not be considered “official” in countries with government heraldic authorities.12American College of Heraldry. FAQs If you are a citizen of a country with an official heraldic authority, the College expects your arms to be granted there first. For U.S. citizens, it registers self-assumed arms after confirming they don’t duplicate existing designs.13American College of Heraldry. Registrations The result is a public record of your claim, closer to a notarized declaration than a government license.
Enforcing Your Rights
If someone copies your registered crest, the enforcement path depends on which protection you secured. Copyright infringement lets you file a federal lawsuit for actual or statutory damages, provided you registered the work in time. Trademark infringement follows a similar route: send a cease-and-desist letter, then sue if the other party refuses to stop.
In trademark disputes, courts ask whether a reasonable consumer would confuse the two designs and think the infringing product came from you. They do not evaluate heraldic rules about whether designs are sufficiently differenced in the traditional sense. The legal question is consumer confusion.
One structural point worth thinking through early: if you register your crest as a trademark for a business and later sell that business, the trademark typically transfers to the new owner. Family members could lose the right to use their own hereditary emblem commercially. Keeping personal and business trademark registrations separate, or structuring ownership carefully at the start, avoids that outcome.
For smaller copyright disputes, the Copyright Claims Board offers a small-claims alternative for cases involving damages under $30,000, which avoids the cost of full federal litigation. The work must be registered or have a pending application before you file a claim there.