How to Register a Trademark: Filing, Examination, and Maintenance

To register a trademark with the federal government, you file an application through the United States Patent and Trademark Office identifying the owner, the mark, and the goods or services it will cover, pay a filing fee of $250 or $350 per class, and work through an examiner’s review before the mark is published for opposition and, if unchallenged, registered. The full process typically runs about ten months from filing to a final decision, and longer if you file based on a future intent to use the mark rather than current use.¹ A federal registration is prima facie evidence of your ownership and exclusive nationwide right to use the mark with the goods or services listed.²

Search for Conflicts Before You File

Filing fees are non-refundable, so a clearance search is the cheapest insurance you can buy. The USPTO runs a free, searchable database of pending and registered marks, and you should look for marks that are similar in sound, appearance, or meaning and that cover related goods or services. The examining attorney assigned to your application runs the same kind of search, and finding a conflicting mark is one of the most common reasons applications get refused.³

Federal filings are not the whole picture. A business already using a mark in commerce without any federal registration still holds common-law rights in the geographic area where it operates, and those earlier rights can block your federal registration if that use predates yours.³ Many applicants also check state trademark databases, business name registries, and domain records to find unregistered users.

Choose a Filing Basis

Every application requires a filing basis, which tells the USPTO the legal reason you qualify to register.⁴ For most U.S. applicants, the choice is between two:

Use in commerce, Section 1(a): You are already selling goods or providing services across state lines under the mark, and you submit a specimen at filing showing the mark in actual use.⁵
Intent to use, Section 1(b): You have a genuine plan to use the mark but have not started yet. No specimen at filing, but you have to prove use later before the registration issues.⁶

The basis controls your timeline. A 1(a) application moves straight from approval to a registration certificate. A 1(b) application adds a whole extra stage after approval, where you file a Statement of Use, and that stage can add months or years. If you’re already selling, file under 1(a). If you’re building toward launch and want to reserve the mark, 1(b) locks in a priority date now.

Applicants domiciled outside the United States have additional bases available under Section 44 and the Madrid Protocol, and they must be represented by a U.S.-licensed attorney throughout.⁴⁷ Domestic applicants can file on their own, though the USPTO recommends counsel.

Identify the Classes That Cover Your Goods or Services

The USPTO uses an international classification system with 45 classes: goods sit in classes 1 through 34, services in classes 35 through 45.⁸ Class 25 is clothing, Class 41 is education and entertainment, Class 9 is software and electronics. You pay a separate filing fee for each class, so a company selling both clothing and software pays two class fees.

Picking the right class and writing an accurate description matter more than most applicants expect. A vague description or the wrong class triggers a correction request from the examiner and slows everything down. The USPTO’s Trademark ID Manual contains pre-approved descriptions covering thousands of products and services, and using one avoids a common source of delay.

Prepare What Goes Into the Application

Owner Information

The application must identify the person or entity that actually controls how the mark is used — you provide a full legal name, a domicile address, and the entity type (individual, corporation, LLC, partnership, or another recognized form).⁹ The owner is not your marketing agency or web designer. Getting this wrong creates ownership disputes that are expensive to fix later.

The Drawing

Every application includes a drawing of the mark. A word-only mark with no particular font, color, or design is filed as a standard character mark, which protects the wording itself regardless of how it appears.⁹ A logo, stylized lettering, or a mark tied to specific colors requires a special-form drawing showing exactly what you want protected, and you must describe each color and where it appears. Foreign-language wording needs an English translation.

The Specimen

For Section 1(a) applications, the specimen is required at filing. For goods, that means a photograph of the mark on the product, a label, a hangtag, or packaging. For services, a website screenshot advertising those services under the mark, or a brochure or advertisement, works. Website screenshots must include the URL and the date accessed.¹⁰ The specimen has to show customers directly associating your mark with the specific goods or services listed.

Disclaimers

If your mark contains a word that merely describes an ingredient, quality, or feature of the product, the USPTO will likely require you to disclaim exclusive rights to that word standing alone. A bakery registering SUNRISE BREAD would disclaim BREAD, because no company can own that generic term. A disclaimer does not weaken protection for the mark as a whole; it just confirms you aren’t trying to monopolize an ordinary word.

File and Pay

Applications go through the USPTO’s electronic system, and you pick between two filing options:

TEAS Plus, $250 per class: You use a pre-approved description from the Trademark ID Manual and agree to all-electronic USPTO communications.
TEAS Standard, $350 per class: You can write a custom description of goods or services, which helps when the pre-approved list doesn’t fit what you sell.

A single mark in one class costs $250 or $350. Three classes at the TEAS Plus rate runs $750. Fees are non-refundable even if the application is ultimately refused. After the owner or an authorized representative signs electronically and you pay by card or electronic funds transfer, the system issues a serial number that becomes your reference for every future USPTO exchange. Expect roughly four and a half months before the examining attorney takes a first look.¹

Examination and Office Actions

The examining attorney reviews the application for compliance with federal trademark law. That includes a search of the federal database for marks likely to cause confusion with yours, weighing how similar the marks look and sound, how related the goods or services are, and whether the same customers buy both.¹¹ The attorney also checks whether the mark is too descriptive, geographically misleading, or otherwise ineligible.¹²

If there are problems, you’ll get an office action listing each one. Some are procedural: clarify your description, fix the specimen, add a disclaimer. Others are substantive refusals, like a finding that your mark is confusingly similar to an existing registration or is merely descriptive.

You have three months from the date the office action issues to respond. An optional three-month extension is available for a fee, capping your window at six months. Miss the deadline and the application is abandoned and your fees are gone.¹³ Most applications that fail don’t fail because the mark was unregistrable. They fail because the applicant either missed the deadline or didn’t respond persuasively to a substantive refusal.

Publication and the Opposition Window

Once the examining attorney approves the application, the mark is published in the USPTO’s Official Gazette. Publication opens a 30-day window during which anyone who believes they would be harmed by the registration can oppose it.¹⁴ An opposition is a mini-trial before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. Oppositions are relatively uncommon for most small-business filings, but a well-known brand actively watching its marks is more likely to challenge you.

Getting to a Registration Certificate

What happens after publication depends on your filing basis.

A Section 1(a) application, where you already proved use, moves to a Certificate of Registration. You can then use the ® symbol with the mark.

A Section 1(b) intent-to-use application gets a Notice of Allowance instead. You then have six months to file a Statement of Use with a specimen showing the mark active in commerce. If you need more time, you can request extensions of six months each, up to five extensions, at $125 per class per extension. The absolute deadline is three years from the Notice of Allowance.¹⁵ Missing any six-month window without filing an extension abandons the application.

Keep the Registration Alive

A federal registration does not run on autopilot. Miss a maintenance deadline and the USPTO will cancel it, no matter how valuable the brand.

The first deadline falls between the fifth and sixth year after registration. You file a Section 8 Declaration of Use showing the mark is still in commerce, along with a current specimen and a $325 per-class fee when filed electronically.¹⁶ A six-month grace period is available after the sixth anniversary with a $100 per-class surcharge.¹⁷

At the ten-year mark, you file both a Section 8 Declaration of Use and a Section 9 Renewal Application. The renewal fee is $325 per class electronically on top of the Section 8 fee, and the combined filing repeats every ten years after that.¹⁸ Missing either document cancels the registration.¹⁶

Once you have used the mark continuously for five years after registration, you can also file a Section 15 Declaration of Incontestability, which narrows the grounds on which someone can challenge your registration and is one of the strongest shields in trademark law.¹⁹ Many registrants file the Section 15 declaration alongside their first Section 8, since both become available around the same time.

1
United States Patent and Trademark Office. Trademark Processing Wait Times
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1057 – Certificates of Registration
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Comprehensive Clearance Search for Similar Trademarks
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Basis
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1051 – Application for Registration
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Application Filing Basis
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Do I Need an Attorney?
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Goods and Services
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Base Application Requirements
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Drawings and Specimens as Application Requirements
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Examination of Your Application
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Possible Grounds for Refusal of a Mark
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Responding to Office Actions
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Approval for Publication
15
United States Patent and Trademark Office. Intent to Use (ITU) Forms
16
United States Patent and Trademark Office. Registration Maintenance/Renewal/Correction Forms
17
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1058 – Duration, Affidavits and Fees
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1059 – Renewal of Registration
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Declaration of Incontestability of a Mark Under Section 15