To trademark a logo with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, you run a conflict search, file an application through the online TEAS system with a drawing of the logo and the goods or services it identifies, respond to any objections from the examining attorney, and clear a 30-day public opposition window before your registration certificate issues. The base filing fee starts at $250 per class, and the process currently averages about 10 months from filing to registration when nothing goes wrong.1United States Patent and Trademark Office. Trademark Processing Wait Times Learning how to trademark a logo is mostly a matter of understanding what the USPTO checks for at each stage so your application doesn’t stall.
Search for Conflicts First
Filing fees are nonrefundable. If your logo is too similar to a mark already registered or pending for related goods or services, the USPTO will refuse the application and keep your money. A search up front is cheap insurance.
Start with the USPTO’s free Trademark Search system, which contains every federally registered trademark and pending application.2United States Patent and Trademark Office. Search Our Trademark Database Because logos are visual, keyword searching alone isn’t enough. The USPTO assigns numeric design search codes to visual elements like stars, animals, geometric shapes, and lettering styles. Look up the codes for the elements in your logo using the Design Search Code Manual, then run those codes through the search system to find visually similar marks.3United States Patent and Trademark Office. Design Search Codes If your logo contains text, search spelling variations and phonetic equivalents, because the examining attorney’s standard is “likelihood of confusion,” not an exact match.
Look outside the federal database too. State trademark registries, business name filings, and general internet searches can turn up “common law” marks that someone acquired just by using a logo in commerce. Those unregistered marks still carry rights in the geographic areas where they’re used, and they can be the basis of a later challenge. Save your search records; they document good faith if a dispute comes up.
Confirm the Logo Can Be Registered
Not every logo qualifies. The biggest refusal ground is likelihood of confusion with an existing mark, but there are several others that trip up applicants who haven’t thought about how the examiner will read the design.4United States Patent and Trademark Office. Possible Grounds for Refusal of a Mark
- Merely descriptive: A logo whose design or text immediately describes a feature, quality, or purpose of the goods or services. A coffee cup image for a coffee shop, standing alone, would likely be refused.
- Geographically descriptive: A mark whose primary significance is a place name where consumers would assume the goods actually come from.
- Primarily a surname: If the dominant element reads as someone’s last name to the purchasing public.
- Ornamental: A design that functions as decoration on the product rather than a source identifier. Putting a design across the front of a t-shirt purely as artwork often reads as ornamental rather than as a brand.
The strongest logos for trademark purposes are either inherently distinctive (fanciful or arbitrary designs that don’t describe the product) or have acquired distinctiveness through extensive use over time.
Prepare the Application
The Drawing and Color Decision
You submit a digital image of the logo, and there’s a strategic choice built into that. If you file in color, protection is limited to that specific color combination, and you have to claim the colors as a feature of the mark, list them, and describe where each appears.5United States Patent and Trademark Office. Drawing of Your Trademark If you file in black and white with no color claim, the registration covers the design in any color scheme, giving you broader protection. Many businesses file black and white first and add a color registration later.
The image must show the exact version of the logo you use or intend to use. Substantial changes after filing aren’t allowed. If the logo includes generic or descriptive words, the USPTO may require a “disclaimer,” meaning you acknowledge you don’t own those words standing alone.6United States Patent and Trademark Office. How to Satisfy a Disclaimer Requirement A bakery whose logo includes “BAKERY” would almost certainly disclaim that word.
Naming the Owner
The application must name the legal owner: an individual, a corporation, an LLC, or another legal entity. The owner’s full legal name and address become public record, which is one reason many applicants register through their business entity rather than personally.
If an employee designed the logo as part of their job, the company typically owns the work. Freelance designers are different. A standalone logo generally doesn’t fall within the categories of work that qualify as “work made for hire” under copyright law without a written agreement.7U.S. Copyright Office. Circular 30 – Works Made for Hire Get a written assignment from any outside designer before you file.
Picking Classes of Goods and Services
You have to specify what the logo identifies, using the USPTO’s system of 45 international classes. Clothing featuring your logo falls under Class 25. Custom printing services go in Class 40.8United States Patent and Trademark Office. Goods and Services – Section: Trademark Classes Each class carries its own filing fee, so the number of classes drives your cost. Protection only extends to the classes you register, though, so skipping a relevant class to save money leaves a gap.
Choosing a Filing Basis
The two most common bases are “use in commerce” (you’re already placing the logo on products or advertising that crosses state lines) and “intent to use” (you have a genuine plan to start).9United States Patent and Trademark Office. Section 1(b) Timeline – Application Based on Intent to Use
If you file under use in commerce, you submit a specimen showing the logo as consumers actually encounter it. For goods, that’s a photo of the logo on the product, packaging, a label, or a tag. For services, a screenshot of your website advertising those services works if it includes the URL and access date.10United States Patent and Trademark Office. Drawings and Specimens as Application Requirements You also state the date you first used the logo anywhere and the date you first used it in interstate commerce. Intent-to-use applications skip the specimen at filing, but you’ll submit one later before registration can issue.
File Through TEAS and Pay the Fees
Applications go through the Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS) on the USPTO website. There are two filing tiers:
- TEAS Plus ($250 per class): Cheaper, but you must describe goods or services using pre-approved language from the Trademark ID Manual. Good fit when the manual already has an accurate entry for what you sell.
- TEAS Standard ($350 per class): Lets you write a custom, free-form description. Use it when the ID Manual doesn’t have an accurate match.
Picking TEAS Plus and then failing to meet its requirements triggers a $100 per-class surcharge that erases most of the savings. Other add-on fees include $200 per class for custom goods descriptions in a TEAS Standard application when an ID Manual entry was available, and $100 per class for an application missing required information like a translation of foreign words in the logo.11United States Patent and Trademark Office. Trademark Fee Information – Section: Additional Fees
The form walks you through owner details, uploading the logo image, identifying goods and services, declaring your filing basis, and attaching a specimen if applicable. You then sign an electronic declaration that everything you submitted is true and pay the fees. Filing fees are nonrefundable regardless of outcome.
What Happens After You File
Examination and Office Actions
You’ll get an electronic receipt with a serial number. Track your application through Trademark Status and Document Retrieval (TSDR) and check it regularly, because the USPTO doesn’t send reminders for most deadlines.12United States Patent and Trademark Office. Checking the Status of a Trademark Application or Registration
The application waits in a queue for assignment to an examining attorney. As of early 2026, the average wait for the first examining action is about 4.5 months from filing.13United States Patent and Trademark Office. Trademarks Dashboard – Section: Measures of Timeliness The examiner reviews legal compliance and searches for conflicts. If anything needs fixing, you’ll get an Office Action listing the objections. You typically have three months from the issue date to respond. Miss it, and the application is treated as abandoned, forcing you to start over with a new filing and new fees.
Office Actions aren’t necessarily fatal. Some raise easily fixable issues like a vague description of goods or a missing disclaimer. Others raise substantive refusals like likelihood of confusion, which require a legal argument to overcome.
Publication and Opposition
Once the examining attorney approves the logo, it’s published in the weekly online Trademark Official Gazette.14United States Patent and Trademark Office. Approval for Publication Publication opens a 30-day window during which anyone who believes registration would harm them can file a formal opposition. Most applications clear this period without challenge. If someone does oppose, the dispute goes to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.
Registration or Notice of Allowance
If no opposition is filed, what comes next depends on your filing basis. Applications filed under use in commerce move to registration and the USPTO issues the certificate. Intent-to-use applications receive a Notice of Allowance instead. From that date, you have six months to start using the logo in commerce and file a Statement of Use with a specimen. Up to five six-month extensions are available, but you must file the Statement of Use within 36 months of the Notice of Allowance or the application is abandoned.
Total time from filing to registration averages around 10 months when nothing goes wrong. Intent-to-use applications run longer because the Statement of Use process adds months after the Notice of Allowance.1United States Patent and Trademark Office. Trademark Processing Wait Times
Keep the Registration Alive
Registration isn’t the end of the process. Your trademark will be canceled if you miss the maintenance filings, and the USPTO won’t warn you. The deadlines run from the registration date on your certificate:15United States Patent and Trademark Office. Post-Registration Timeline
- Between years 5 and 6: File a Section 8 Declaration of Use showing the logo is still in use. There’s a six-month grace period with a late fee. Miss the grace period and the registration is canceled with no revival.
- Between years 9 and 10, then every 10 years: File a combined Section 8 Declaration and Section 9 Renewal Application. The current combined fee is $650 per class. Miss it and the registration both cancels and expires.16United States Patent and Trademark Office. Trademark Fee Information
After five years of continuous use following registration, you can file a Section 15 declaration to make the mark “incontestable.” That limits the grounds on which someone can challenge the registration, eliminating several common attacks like a claim that the mark is merely descriptive, though it doesn’t make the mark immune to every challenge.17Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1065 – Incontestability of Right to Use Mark
Once your mark is federally registered, you have the exclusive right to use the ® symbol with it. Before registration, use ™ to signal that you’re claiming trademark rights. Using ® before registration is approved can result in penalties, including cancellation of a pending application. It’s a surprisingly common mistake.
A Note on Enforcement and Foreign Countries
A federal registration is only as strong as your willingness to enforce it. If you find someone using a confusingly similar logo, the typical first step is a cease and desist letter identifying your registration and demanding they stop within a set timeframe. If that doesn’t resolve things, federal registration gives you the right to sue for infringement in federal court under the Lanham Act, where successful plaintiffs can recover the infringer’s profits, their own damages, and lawsuit costs, with damages potentially tripled for willful infringement.18Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1117 – Recovery for Violation of Rights
One boundary worth naming: a U.S. registration only protects you within the United States. If you sell abroad, the Madrid Protocol lets you seek protection in over 100 member countries through a single international application built on your U.S. filing.19United States Patent and Trademark Office. Outbound Madrid Protocol Application Process Each designated country then examines the mark under its own laws.