How To Register A Trademark For A Private Business

Filing for a trademark can protect your brand. This elementary guide talks you lot through filing the paperwork, what it costs, and more than.

Sound engineer mixing sound

Your make is an essential function of your business. Filing a trademark isn't a simple process, only the protection it affords your make is worth your time and effort.

To register a trademark with the U.Due south. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), you volition need to fill out and submit a trademark application.

You can do this online, using the Trademark Electronic Awarding System (TEAS), an online trademark filing service, or you tin submit a paper application. Earlier the trademark application process, you want to start with a trademark search and make sure your trademark is available.

Your trademark application will need to include the post-obit information.

Possessor of the Marking and Contact Information

If your business organization is a formal legal entity such as a corporation or LLC, the name of the owner is the business organization name. An private can also own a trademark.

For contact information, you will need at least a mailing accost, only you may also include an email address, fax number, and other methods of contact.

Type of Mark

In that location are three types of marking formats. Yous must choose only one of the following formats:

Standard character format. Utilize this format to register words, letters or numbers, or combinations thereof, without any particular font or formatting. A standard grapheme format trademark allows you to use your trademark in any style or blueprint.
Special character format. Utilise this format if your marking has a design chemical element or particular stylized words, letters or numbers that you want to protect. Examples might include a logo, a symbol or words in a detail font, color or typeface, such equally Apple tree's apple symbol or Coca-Cola'south unique typography that appears on their soda cans.
A sound mark. Examples include the three-note chinkle for NBC, the panthera leo's roar for MGM and Intel's sequence used to denote its Pentium processor.

A Drawing and Specimen

The trademark awarding asks for a cartoon of your mark and a specimen of your mark.

Drawing

A drawing of your mark is a visual depiction of what your mark looks like, by itself, without anything else effectually it and without it being fastened to a product.

If you lot are applying for a trademark in standard character format, your drawing will consist of typed letters, numbers or punctuation.

If you are applying for a trademark in a special character format, your cartoon will be a .jpg file showing the mark you want to register.

Specimen

A specimen of your mark shows how you use the marking in connection with your goods or services.

For example, if y'all sell t-shirts, you lot might submit a picture of your label fastened to i of your shirts. If you provide services, you tin can send a marketing brochure or advertising materials containing your mark.

If you use a audio to make your products, y'all may include a video clip, such every bit the roaring MGM lion, that contains only your mark.

If you are applying for a trademark in a sound or move video formation, you must submit the specimen as an electronic file in ane of the following formats: .wav, .wmv, .wma, .mp3, .mpg, or .avi.

The specimen cannot exceed 5 MB in size for audio files or thirty MB for video clips because the TEAS cannot accommodate larger files.

Identifying your goods or services

You must accurately identify the appurtenances or services associated with your marking. If you lot make a mistake, you cannot change or add additional appurtenances or services later.

You should only identify appurtenances or services for which you are currently using your mark, or for which yous actually plan to use your marker in the near future.

Your trademark awarding must correctly place whether your mark is used for goods or services: "Appurtenances" are products that you sell, while "services" are activities that yous perform for other people.

Your application must as well describe the goods or services.

The USPTO's Trademark Manual of Acceptable Identification of Goods and Services contains descriptions of acceptable identifications.

If you lot can find an accurate description of your good or service in the manual, you should use it; otherwise you lot can describe your adept or service in your own words. You lot can search the manual on the USPTO website.

Trademark Filing Ground

You must cull a filing basis from among four possible choices:

Use in Commerce (Section ane(a)). Use this filing basis if yous are already using your marking "in commerce," significant in connection with goods or services that y'all offer across state lines or internationally. If you simply offer your goods or services within ane state, you tin still file for this type of trademark.
Intent to Use (Section i(b)). Use this filing ground if you plan to utilise your marker in commerce inside the adjacent iii or iv years. Yous will demand to begin using the trademark and provide a specimen earlier it can be registered.
Foreign application exists for the same goods or services (Section 44(d)). Apply this filing basis if you are registering a foreign application for the same trademark within six (6) months of filing the U.S. application.
Foreign registration exists for the same appurtenances or services (Department 44(e)). Using this filing basis if a foreign registration for the mark already exists in a defined treaty land. If it does, you must provide all the relevant information in the U.S. application, including a re-create of the foreign registration certificate.

Trademark Application Fees

At the time of publication, the filing fee for a trademark application is $250–$750 per class of goods and/or services. The fee is not refundable if your application is rejected and could alter.

Check with the USPTO for the nigh recent fees.

What Happens Later You File?

Your awarding will exist assigned to an examining attorney, who will typically begin reviewing it within iii months.

If the chaser identifies problems with your application, yous may receive an Office action (a notification that there is a problem with your awarding), to which you must respond before your application can move forward.

After whatsoever issues identified by the examining attorney accept been resolved, your mark will be published in The Trademark Official Gazette. That is the weekly USPTO publication that lists newly published marks as well as canceled and renewed registrations.

During the application process, other trademark owners could formally oppose your awarding. If a corporation feels your logo is too similar to their ain, for example, they may oppose you.

This would deadening upwards your registration process, but it doesn't mean your application is automatically dismissed. If no 1 opposes your registration, or if an opposition is unsuccessful, your mark volition so be registered.

Depending on the specific circumstance of the trademark application, it tin can accept anywhere from several months to a few years for a registrant to respond to questions from the examining chaser and obtain final approval and trademark registration,