Registering a federal trademark costs $350 per class of goods or services and you can file it yourself in an afternoon at the USPTO's Trademark Center. The filing is the easy part. The part that determines whether your $350 turns into a registration or a rejection letter is the clearance search you do before filing — and that's the step most first-timers skip.

This guide walks through the whole thing: whether you actually need a trademark yet, what can and can't be registered, how to run a real clearance search for free, the filing itself, and the 12–18 months that follow. No legalese, and no pretending you need a $2,000 attorney for a straightforward name.

First: registering a business name is not a trademark

This is the confusion that sells a lot of unnecessary services, so let's kill it up front. When you register an LLC or file a DBA, the state is doing exactly one thing: keeping two companies from having identical names on its own registry. It gives you zero rights to stop anyone else from using the name commercially — a company two states over, or an Etsy seller in your own city, can trade under the same name all day.

Three separate layers, from weakest to strongest:

Layer How you get it What it protects
State registration (LLC name, DBA) Filing your entity paperwork Only prevents identical names on that state's business registry
Common-law trademark (™) Automatic, just by using the name in commerce Real but narrow rights, limited to your actual geographic market — and you carry the burden of proving them
Federal registration (®) USPTO application, $350/class Nationwide exclusive rights for your goods/services class, legal presumption of ownership, ability to sue in federal court, and a listing that scares off most would-be copiers before anything starts

The ™ symbol you can use today, free, with no filing. The ® symbol is illegal to use until the USPTO actually registers your mark.

Do you need one yet? An honest filter

Plenty of businesses genuinely don't need a federal trademark on day one. The money you have at the start usually has better uses than defending a name nobody's copying yet.

Wait on it if: you're a single-location local service business (cleaning, landscaping, tutoring) with no plans to expand or franchise; you're still validating the idea and the name might change; or your "brand" is just your own legal name.

File sooner rather than later if any of these are true:

  • You sell online across state lines — e-commerce, digital products, an app. Your market is national, so your protection should be.
  • The brand is the asset: consumer products, food brands, courses, anything you'd ever license or franchise.
  • You're investing real money in branding, packaging, or ads that would be expensive to redo.
  • You're building an audience under the name (newsletter, YouTube, podcast) that a squatter could hold hostage.

One more argument for early filing: the USPTO works first-come, first-served on the application date. If someone files before you — even if you used the name first — untangling that costs more than every fee in this article combined.

What can actually be trademarked

The USPTO doesn't register names for being nice; it registers them for being distinctive. There's a spectrum, and where your name sits predicts your odds:

  1. Fanciful (invented words: Kodak, Xerox) — strongest, easiest to register.
  2. Arbitrary (real words, unrelated to product: Apple for computers) — strong.
  3. Suggestive (hints at the product without describing it: Netflix, Coppertone) — registrable, and the sweet spot for most small businesses.
  4. Descriptive (Cold and Creamy for ice cream, Dallas Plumbing Co.) — refused unless you can prove years of consumer recognition.
  5. Generic (The Ice Cream Shop for an ice cream shop) — never registrable, by anyone.

If you're still choosing your business name, this list is worth more than any branding exercise: pick suggestive or better and the legal side gets cheap and easy. Surnames alone and purely geographic terms also get refused routinely — "Smith's Baltimore Roofing" has all three problems in one name.

Step 1: Run a real clearance search (free, ~2 hours)

The USPTO refuses applications that create a likelihood of confusion with an existing registration — similar name and related goods/services. Your job is to find those conflicts before paying $350 to discover them.

  • Search the federal database at the USPTO's trademark search system (tmsearch.uspto.gov). Search the exact name first, then get paranoid: sound-alikes (Kwik / Quick), alternate spellings, singular/plural, the name inside longer marks. Confusingly similar kills applications — not just identical.
  • Check "related" broadly. A conflict doesn't require the same product, only products a consumer might link. Coffee beans and a café? Related. T-shirts and hats? Related.
  • Search state registries, Google, and social handles. Unregistered users still hold common-law rights in their territory, and they can oppose your application or carve out their region even after you register.
  • Check the domain and marketplaces — Amazon, Etsy — where unregistered brands live.

Find a live, similar mark in a related class? The cheap move is almost always picking a new name now, not arguing later. This is the single decision where a one-hour consult with a trademark attorney pays for itself: reading "likelihood of confusion" case-by-case is genuinely their skill, not a form-filling upsell.

Step 2: Pick your class(es) — this sets your price

The USPTO sorts all commerce into 45 international classes (clothing is 25, advertising services 35, education 41...). You pay $350 per class, so a t-shirt brand that also sells online courses is $700.

Money-saving detail nobody mentions: when you file, describe your goods using the USPTO's pre-approved Trademark ID Manual entries. Writing your own free-form description triggers a $200 surcharge per class (and another $100 if your application has gaps). Sticking to the menu keeps a one-class filing at a flat $350. Start with the class where you actually make money today — you can always file additional classes later as the business grows.

Step 3: Choose your filing basis

Two options, and the right one is just a factual question:

  • Use in commerce (Section 1a): you're already selling under the name across state lines. You'll submit a specimen — a photo of the name on your product, packaging, or a screenshot of your live sales page. (A mockup or a logo file alone gets refused; it must show the mark in actual commerce.)
  • Intent to use (Section 1b): you haven't launched yet but genuinely plan to. This reserves your place in line — hugely valuable pre-launch — but adds a step: after approval you file an allegation of use with its own fee (roughly $100–$150 per class, plus extension fees if you need more launch runway; check the current USPTO fee schedule).

Also decide what you're protecting: a standard character mark protects the words themselves in any font or styling — that's the right default for a business name. A design/logo mark protects that specific visual. If you can only afford one, protect the words.

Step 4: File it (Trademark Center, ~90 minutes)

File at the USPTO's Trademark Center. You'll need: the owner's legal name (file as your LLC if you have one — the entity should own its own brand), the mark, your class(es) and ID Manual descriptions, your basis, the specimen if filing under use, and a card for the fee. U.S.-based owners can self-file; foreign-domiciled applicants are required to use a U.S.-licensed attorney.

Step 5: The waiting (and what happens in it)

  • Examination: several months in, an examining attorney reviews your application. Roughly half of applications get an office action — a letter raising issues. Many are fixable technicalities (disclaim a descriptive word, clarify the goods description); respond by the deadline or the application dies.
  • Publication: approved marks get published for a 30-day opposition window where existing brands can object. Most sail through quietly.
  • Registration: you get the certificate and the right to use ®. All in, expect 12–18 months from filing — which is itself an argument for filing early, since your protection dates back to your application date.

What it all costs

Item Cost
Base application (per class) $350
Free-form goods description (avoidable) +$200/class
Intent-to-use follow-up filings ~$100–$250/class
Attorney, flat-fee filing (optional for U.S. filers) $500–$2,000
Maintenance: years 5–6 (Section 8 declaration) $325/class
Maintenance: every 10 years (renewal + declaration) $650/class

Miss a maintenance window and the registration cancels — set calendar reminders the day your certificate arrives. Budgeting all this alongside your other launch spend? Our startup costs checklist has a line item for it.

The scam warning every new filer needs

The moment you file, your application becomes public record — and you'll start receiving official-looking invoices from entities with names like "Trademark Compliance Center" demanding $900 "registration fees." They're junk mail. The USPTO only communicates from uspto.gov addresses, and payments only happen inside your USPTO account. This scam is prolific enough that the USPTO maintains a warning page about it; forward anything suspicious there and pay nothing.

FAQ

How much does it cost to trademark a business name? $350 per class of goods/services if you file yourself using pre-approved descriptions — that's the complete federal cost for most single-class small businesses. Add $500–$2,000 if you hire an attorney, and budget $325/class at years 5–6 and $650/class every 10 years to keep it alive.

How long does it take? Commonly 12 to 18 months from filing to certificate. Your rights effectively date back to your filing date, though, so the wait matters less than filing before someone else does.

Do I need a trademark if I have an LLC? The LLC protects you (liability); it does nothing to protect the name outside your state's registry. If the brand matters beyond your local market, they're two different tools and you eventually want both — here's the LLC side of that decision.

Can I trademark a name I'm not using yet? Yes — that's exactly what an intent-to-use (1b) application is for. You reserve priority now and prove actual use after launch. It's the standard play for funded launches and rebrand projects.

What if someone already has the name? It depends on their class and territory. The same name can coexist in unrelated industries (Delta Air Lines and Delta Faucet). If they're in a related class, or they're unregistered but active in your market, rename now — it only gets more expensive later.

Is the ™ symbol worth using before registration? Yes, it's free and it signals you're claiming the mark. Just don't use ® before registration — that's a federal no-no that can also sink your application.