To trademark a name in the United States, you file an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) through its Trademark Center system, pay a base fee of $350 for each class of goods or services the name will cover, and wait roughly 12 to 18 months for the certificate to issue.1USPTO. How Long Does It Take to Register? Federal registration gives you a legal presumption of nationwide ownership, the exclusive right to use the name for the goods or services you list, and the ability to sue in federal court.2Cornell Law Institute. Trademark Registration The mechanics are simple. The details are where applications die.
Can the Name Be Registered
The USPTO will only register a name that is distinctive enough to identify the source of goods or services rather than just describe them. Marks fall along a spectrum, and where yours sits largely decides whether it gets through.3USPTO. Strong Trademarks
- Fanciful marks are invented words with no outside meaning (Exxon for petroleum). They get the strongest protection.
- Arbitrary marks are real words used in an unrelated context (Apple for computers).
- Suggestive marks hint at a quality without stating it, requiring a mental leap from name to product.
- Descriptive marks state a feature directly (“Creamy” for yogurt) and cannot register unless the owner proves consumers have come to associate the name with a specific brand over time.
- Generic terms, the common name of the product itself, can never be registered.
Passing the distinctiveness test is not enough. The examining attorney will also compare your name against existing registrations and pending applications to see whether consumers might mistakenly assume the two brands are connected. That comparison weighs sound, appearance, and overall commercial impression together with how related the goods or services are. A name that mirrors an existing registration in an unrelated industry may survive; the same name in a related field almost certainly will not.4USPTO. Likelihood of Confusion
Several other grounds routinely defeat applications:5USPTO. Possible Grounds for Refusal of a Mark
- Geographically descriptive names, where consumers would assume the goods come from the place named.
- Names the average consumer would read primarily as a surname rather than a brand.
- Ornamental use, where the name functions as decoration (a phrase splashed across a t-shirt) instead of a source identifier.
- Deceptively misdescriptive names that falsely suggest a quality the product does not have and that consumers would plausibly believe.
Search the federal database before you file. It is not technically required, but the examining attorney will search regardless, and if a conflicting mark exists your fee is gone. A serious search covers phonetic equivalents, alternate spellings, and similar names in related industries. The USPTO’s current search tool lives on the agency’s website and replaced the old TESS system in late 2023.6USPTO. Retiring TESS – What to Know About the New Trademark Search System
What to Have Ready Before Filing
A Filing Basis
You have to pick at least one basis when you submit. Most applicants use one of two. “Use in Commerce” is for names you are already selling under. “Intent-to-Use” is for names you plan to use soon but haven’t yet. The basis affects what proof you owe upfront and what has to come later.7USPTO. Basis With intent-to-use, you can file without showing commercial use, but the registration cannot issue until you do.8USPTO. Trademark Applications – Intent-to-Use (ITU) Basis
Goods, Services, and Classes
Every application must list the specific goods or services the name will cover, and each item sits in one of 45 international classes. Clothing is class 25, electronics is class 9, restaurants and hotels are class 43.9USPTO. Goods and Services You pay the base fee for each class, so a name used for both software and consulting services costs twice as much. Pulling descriptions from the USPTO’s pre-approved Trademark ID Manual keeps you at the base rate; writing your own adds a $200 surcharge per class.10USPTO. Summary of 2025 Trademark Fee Changes
A Specimen (If You Are Already Using the Name)
Use-in-commerce filers must submit a specimen showing the name as consumers actually encounter it: a photograph of product packaging, a screenshot of a website offering the services with the name displayed. The name has to appear in direct connection with the listed goods or services. Mockups, digital-only labels, and printer proofs are rejected during examination.
A Real Domicile Address, and Sometimes an Attorney
Every applicant must give a domicile address, and the USPTO reads that requirement strictly. It has to be a real street location where you live or where your company’s officers direct operations. P.O. boxes, “care of” addresses, commercial mail receiving agencies, and registered agent addresses are presumptively unacceptable, and the examining attorney will refuse the application until you provide one that qualifies.11USPTO. Examination Guide 3-23 – Examination Procedures for Reviewing Domicile Addresses The narrow exception covers U.S. government entities and federally recognized tribes.
If you live outside the United States, you must hire a U.S.-licensed attorney to represent you before the USPTO. The rule reaches all foreign-domiciled applicants, registrants, and parties in Trademark Trial and Appeal Board proceedings, including Canadian filers.12USPTO. Trademark Rule Requires Foreign-Domiciled Applicants and Registrants to Have a U.S.-Licensed Attorney Domestic applicants are not required to use an attorney, though the USPTO recommends it.
Filing the Application and What It Costs
The USPTO restructured its fees in January 2025, replacing the TEAS Plus and TEAS Standard forms with a single base fee of $350 per class, filed through Trademark Center.10USPTO. Summary of 2025 Trademark Fee Changes Several new surcharges can add to that base:
- $200 per class for typing your own goods/services description instead of using the Trademark ID Manual.
- $100 per class if the application is missing required information.
- $200 per class for each additional 1,000 characters beyond the first 1,000 in a free-form description.
A tight application built from the pre-approved ID Manual costs $350 per class. A loose one with custom descriptions and missing fields can reach $650 or more per class before anyone reviews it.13USPTO. Trademark Fee Information
The application itself asks for the owner’s full legal name, a valid street-address domicile, the filing basis, the goods or services with their classes, a drawing of the mark, and an electronic signature under penalty of perjury confirming the information is accurate and that you believe you have the right to use the name.14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1051 – Application for Registration; Verification Payment is non-refundable, taken by credit card, electronic funds transfer, or a USPTO deposit account. Once payment clears, the system stamps a filing date and serial number you will use to track the application from here on.
Examination, Office Actions, and Publication
After filing, your application waits in a queue. As of early 2026, the first response from an examining attorney takes about 4.5 months on average.15USPTO. Trademark Processing Wait Times The attorney checks for conflicts with existing marks, evaluates distinctiveness, reviews specimens and descriptions, and confirms the technical requirements.
If problems exist, the attorney issues an Office Action listing them. You have three months from the notice date to respond, with an optional three-month extension available for a fee.16USPTO. Response Time Period Miss the deadline and the application is declared abandoned. Fee gone. Process over. Office Actions are not final rejections; they are chances to fix a problem or make an argument. Ignoring one, or answering it poorly, ends the application just as decisively as an outright refusal.
Applications that clear examination move to publication in the Trademark Official Gazette, a digital publication released every Tuesday.17USPTO. Trademark Official Gazette Publication opens a 30-day window for anyone who believes registration would harm them to file an opposition, most commonly on likelihood-of-confusion grounds.18USPTO. Opposition Period and Extensions of Time to Oppose Oppositions go to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB), which can block registration but cannot award money damages or resolve broader infringement claims.19USPTO. About the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
If no opposition comes and the window closes, use-in-commerce applications proceed to registration. Intent-to-use applications take one more step.
If You Filed Intent-to-Use: Statement of Use
Clearing opposition on an intent-to-use application does not produce a registration. Instead, the USPTO issues a Notice of Allowance (NOA), which confirms the mark survived examination but still needs proof of actual commercial use.20USPTO. Section 1(b) Timeline – Application Based on Intent to Use
From the NOA date, you get six months to file a Statement of Use with a specimen. If you aren’t ready, you can buy a six-month extension for $125 per class filed electronically, up to five times, for a maximum of three years from the NOA.21USPTO. Intent to Use (ITU) Forms Stretching a single-class application to the full three years piles up $625 in extension fees on top of the original filing cost. If three years pass without a Statement of Use, the application is abandoned.
Keeping the Registration Alive
The certificate is not the end. Federal registrations require periodic filings, and the deadlines are enforced strictly enough that missing one cancels the mark.22Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1058 – Duration, Affidavits and Fees
- Between years 5 and 6, file a Section 8 Declaration of Continued Use showing the mark is still active in commerce. Electronic filing fee: $325 per class.23USPTO. USPTO Fee Schedule
- Between years 9 and 10, file a combined Section 8 Declaration and Section 9 Renewal Application. Combined electronic cost: $650 per class.
- Every ten years after that (years 19-20, 29-30, and so on), file the same combined Section 8 and Section 9 documents at the same cost.24Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1059 – Renewal of Registration
Each deadline has a six-month grace period, but late filing costs an extra $100 per class per filing.25USPTO. Keeping Your Registration Alive Miss the grace period entirely and the registration is cancelled with no path to revive it.
After five consecutive years of continuous use following registration, you can also file a Section 15 declaration to make the mark incontestable, which sharply limits the grounds on which a competitor can challenge its validity. Qualifying requires no adverse decision against your ownership, no pending proceeding involving the mark, and the name cannot be generic for the goods covered.26Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1065 – Incontestability of Right to Use Mark The Section 15 declaration is often filed alongside the Section 8 declaration at the five-to-six-year window.
Enforcing the Mark
A registration is worth what you are willing to protect. Failing to police unauthorized use weakens the mark over time and can eventually cost you the protection you paid for. Enforcement usually starts with a cease-and-desist letter, and most disputes end there. When they don’t, a federal registration lets you sue in federal court, where you have to show that the infringing use is likely to confuse consumers and that your business was harmed.
Courts can issue injunctions stopping the infringement, and where bad faith is shown, the infringer may be ordered to hand over profits and pay additional damages plus your attorney’s fees. Federal law also provides a separate dilution claim for well-known marks, protecting them from uses that blur or tarnish the brand even without consumer confusion.
If someone else applies for a mark that conflicts with yours, you can oppose during the 30-day publication window or petition the TTAB to cancel an existing registration. The board hears both through a trial-like process before a three-judge panel and can block or cancel registrations, but not award damages.19USPTO. About the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board When money is at stake, a federal infringement suit is the route.