How to Copyright a Logo: Eligibility, Filing, and Notice

To copyright a logo, register it with the U.S. Copyright Office through the online eCO system at copyright.gov/registration. The fee is $45 for a Single Application or $65 for a Standard Application, and most electronic filings that don’t require correspondence with the examiner finish in about 1.9 months.¹ Your logo is technically protected the moment you fix it in a tangible form like a digital file or a sketch, but registration is what lets you sue for infringement and collect statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work for willful copying.²

Confirm the Logo Is Eligible

Copyright protects “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” The Supreme Court reads “original” to require two things: independent creation and at least a minimal degree of creativity.³ The Office applies that standard strictly to logos, and several common design choices fall short:

Common geometric shapes. A plain circle, triangle, or square is treated as public domain, though a creative combination of geometric elements sometimes qualifies.⁴
Standard lettering. A company name typed in an off-the-shelf font, with no decorative graphic element, will almost certainly be refused.
Simple color schemes. Applying color to an otherwise unoriginal design does not add enough originality to register.⁴

Intricate illustrations, stylized characters, and genuinely creative arrangements of elements generally clear the bar. If there is essentially only one way to visually express a particular idea, courts may refuse protection under the merger doctrine, but that rarely affects a well-designed logo.

AI-Generated Designs

If you used an AI image generator such as Midjourney or DALL-E, the Copyright Office will not register material where the AI determined the expressive elements. Its position is that copyright protects only “the product of human creativity.”⁵ Human modifications you make to AI output may be registrable, but you have to disclaim the AI-generated portions in the application. A logo produced entirely through text prompts, without meaningful human artistic intervention, is not copyrightable under current guidance.

Confirm Who Actually Owns It

Ownership depends on who created the logo and under what arrangement. Filing in the wrong name causes real problems later.

If an employee designed the logo as part of their job duties, the employer owns it automatically as a “work made for hire” and files the registration in its own name.⁶

Freelancers are different. Work-for-hire treatment for commissioned work only applies to nine specific statutory categories, and logos are not on the list.⁶ Even if you paid a designer thousands of dollars, the designer owns the copyright by default. Payment alone does not transfer it.

To acquire the copyright from a freelance designer, you need a written assignment signed by the designer.⁷ Verbal agreements don’t count. Use present-tense language (“Designer hereby assigns all right, title, and interest”) rather than future-tense language (“Designer agrees to assign”), which courts have treated as an unfulfilled promise rather than a completed transfer. Get it signed before work begins.

Gather Your Application Information

Before you open the online form, have the following ready:

Title of the work. This can be as simple as “[Company Name] Logo.”
Author information. Full legal name of the person who created the logo, or the organization if the work qualifies as a work made for hire. You’ll also need the author’s nationality and year of birth.⁸
Year of completion.
Claimant information. Name and address of the copyright owner. If the claimant is different from the author because of an assignment, you’ll briefly explain how ownership was obtained.
A deposit copy. A digital image file of the logo. The Copyright Office accepts JPG, PNG, PDF, TIF, and SVG, among other formats. Upload a high-resolution version so the examiner can see every detail.⁹

If the logo incorporates stock images, public domain artwork, or other pre-existing material, use the “Limitation of Claim” section to exclude those elements. The registration will cover only the new creative work you added.

File Through the eCO System

Log into the eCO Registration System at copyright.gov/registration. The system walks you through several screens. Logos are filed under the visual arts category using Form VA, and in the “Nature of Authorship” field you’ll describe your contribution with terms like “2-D artwork” or “graphic design.”⁸

Single Application or Standard Application

The system offers two options. The Single Application costs $45 and works only when one person created the logo, that same person owns it, and the work is not made for hire. The Standard Application costs $65 and covers everything else: employee-created work-for-hire logos, logos with multiple authors, and situations where the claimant is different from the creator.¹⁰ If you file a Single Application for a logo that doesn’t qualify, the Office will refuse the claim and you’ll refile using the Standard Application and pay the $65 fee from scratch.¹¹

Upload and Pay

After entering your information, upload the deposit copy. Pay through the integrated payment system with a credit card, debit card, or ACH bank transfer, then submit. The system generates a confirmation with a service request number for tracking. A paper mail-in option exists, but electronic filing is significantly faster.

What to Expect After You Submit

Electronic filings that don’t require correspondence with the examiner average about 1.9 months, ranging from under one month to 3.8 months. If the examiner needs to write to you, the average stretches to 3.7 months and can run to about 8 months.¹ If the examiner finds the logo meets the creativity standard, you’ll receive a certificate of registration by mail. If not, you’ll get a written refusal explaining why.

If the Office Refuses

A refusal isn’t necessarily the end. You can file a first request for reconsideration within three months of the refusal, arguing why the logo does meet the originality threshold.¹² The fee for the first appeal is $350.¹⁰ A second denial can be taken to the Copyright Office Review Board. Reconsideration works best when specific creative elements were overlooked, not when the logo genuinely consists of basic shapes or standard typefaces.

If You Need It Faster

If you’re preparing to file an infringement lawsuit or facing a customs deadline, “Special Handling” costs $800 per claim and requires you to demonstrate a specific, time-sensitive need.¹⁰ For routine filings the cost isn’t worth it, but when someone is actively copying your logo and you need to get into court, it can be essential.

Register Early to Preserve Your Remedies

You cannot file a federal infringement lawsuit until the copyright is registered or the Copyright Office has refused your application.¹³ More importantly, timely registration is what makes you eligible for statutory damages of $750 to $30,000 per work (up to $150,000 for willful infringement) and for attorney’s fees.² Without registration, you’re limited to actual financial losses, which for a logo can be difficult to prove.

To keep those enhanced remedies available, register the logo before any infringement starts, or within three months of the logo’s first publication.¹⁴ Miss that window, and you’re stuck with actual damages even after you register.

Add a Copyright Notice

A copyright notice on the logo (for example, “© 2026 Company Name”) is not required, but it’s free and it removes an infringer’s ability to claim they didn’t know the work was protected.¹⁵ Without a notice, an infringer can argue “innocent infringement” and potentially reduce statutory damages to as little as $200 per work.²

A proper notice has three elements: the © symbol (or the word “Copyright”), the year of first publication, and the name of the copyright owner. For a logo reproduced on merchandise, the statute lets you omit the year, because pictorial and graphic works on useful articles are carved out.¹⁵

Copyright Doesn’t Do Everything a Trademark Does

Copyright registration protects the artistic design of your logo against copying. It does not, on its own, stop another business from adopting a confusingly similar mark to sell competing goods or services. A competitor could design a logo that looks nothing like yours but still causes consumer confusion through similar colors or layout; that’s a trademark problem, not a copyright one. Conversely, someone could reproduce your exact artwork on a T-shirt with no connection to your business, and copyright covers that where trademark may not. If your logo identifies your business in commerce, a federal trademark registration through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is a separate filing with a separate agency, and most businesses pursue both.

1
U.S. Copyright Office. Registration Processing Times
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 504 – Remedies for Infringement: Damages and Profits
3
U.S. Copyright Office. Copyrightable Authorship
4
U.S. Copyright Office. Review Board – Globe Design
5
Federal Register. Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 101 – Definitions
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 204 – Execution of Transfers of Copyright Ownership
8
U.S. Copyright Office. Form VA – Copyright
9
eCFR. 37 CFR 202.20 – Deposit of Copies and Phonorecords for Copyright Registration
10
U.S. Copyright Office. Fees
11
U.S. Copyright Office. Circular 11: The Single Application
12
Federal Register. Reconsideration Procedure for Refusals To Register
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 411 – Registration and Civil Infringement Actions
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 412 – Registration as Prerequisite to Certain Remedies for Infringement
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 401 – Notice of Copyright: Visually Perceptible Copies