How to Trademark a Logo in the US: What Small Businesses Need to Know

Most small business owners think about trademarking the first time someone copies them. By then it is already too late to be cheap. Do it early and you have legal ground to stand on. Wait and you're hoping nobody got there first.

What a trademark actually gives you

A federal registration creates nationwide rights and a legal presumption that you own the mark for the specific goods or services listed in the registration. It does not give you control over every use of a similar logo. The issue is whether another use is likely to confuse customers in a related market. Registration also lets you use the ® symbol, which by itself does a lot of the deterrence work.

Using TM without registering relies on common-law rights, which are based on actual use and usually limited to where you do business. Earlier common-law use can still matter, but proving it is messier, and a later federal filer may create problems outside your existing market.

Search before you file

The USPTO won't refuse your application because you skipped the search, but it can refuse it if your mark is confusingly similar to an existing mark for related goods or services. And you'll have already paid the filing fee.

Search the USPTO's trademark database at tmsearch.uspto.gov before filing. (The old TESS system was retired at the end of 2023; the replacement is the same idea with a cleaner interface.) Start with your exact logo name, then broaden to similar words, sounds, and visual concepts in your category. If you find something close, think carefully about whether to proceed. A professional trademark search goes deeper, but the free search will catch obvious conflicts.

Filing through Trademark Center

The USPTO retired the old TEAS system for new applications on January 18, 2025. You now file at Trademark Center on the USPTO website. The base fee is $350 per class. If you pick your goods or services description from the USPTO's pre-approved Trademark ID Manual, that is the whole fee. If you write your own free-form description, expect a $200 per-class surcharge, plus another $200 for each additional 1,000 characters after the first 1,000. There is also a $100 per-class surcharge if the USPTO finds your application is missing required information.

For most small businesses, picking from the ID Manual is the right call: the pre-approved language almost always has something that fits, and you skip the surcharges.

You also need to choose a filing basis. Use-based (Section 1(a)) means the mark is already in commerce. You submit a specimen showing real use: packaging or a product page for goods, or a storefront sign or service page for services. Intent-to-use (Section 1(b)) means you plan to use it but have not started yet. The base fee is the same, but after publication, if nobody opposes, the USPTO issues a Notice of Allowance. You then have six months to file a Statement of Use proving you actually started using it, which costs another $150 per class. Intent-to-use is useful for locking in priority before launch, but the extra step and extra fee are real.

Whichever basis, you need to specify which Nice Classification classes your logo covers. There are 45 of them. Register where you actually operate: clothing (Class 25), restaurant services (Class 43), SaaS or hosted software services (Class 42), downloadable software (Class 9). Note that software splits across two classes depending on whether you sell it as a downloaded product or a hosted service. Don't register in every class. It is expensive and pointless.

Timeline

USPTO published wait times sit around 4 to 5 months from filing to first office action, and around 10 months from filing to registration or abandonment as of mid-2026. An examining attorney reviews your application and either approves it, sends an office action (a request to clarify or fix something), or refuses it.

If the examining attorney approves it, the USPTO publishes your mark in the Official Gazette for 30 days. During that window, anyone who believes it conflicts with their mark can file an opposition. If nobody opposes yours, the USPTO issues the registration certificate.

Office actions add months; oppositions add more. If you filed intent-to-use, you also need to clear the Statement of Use step before the registration issues. A 12 to 18 month total is realistic if anything in your filing needs cleanup.

Where things go wrong

Not searching first is the most common and expensive mistake. You find out your mark conflicts after you've already paid the filing fee.

Filing in the wrong class is the next one. If your logo isn't registered in the category where your business operates, you are not actually protected there.

The ornamental-use trap catches more DIY filers than any other rule. A logo printed across the front of a t-shirt is usually ornamental. For goods, a better specimen is often a tag, label, packaging photo, or a product page where customers can buy the item. For services, a storefront sign, business card, brochure, or website can work if it connects the logo to the service being offered. The USPTO can reject applications where the specimen reads as decoration rather than a source identifier.

Too descriptive a mark also won't register. "Fresh Baked Bread" for a bakery just describes what you sell, not where it comes from. The more arbitrary and distinctive your logo, the better its chances.

Whether to hire a lawyer

You can file yourself. The process is designed to be accessible, and plenty of people do it without a lawyer.

An attorney makes sense if your search turned up something potentially similar and you're not sure how close is too close, if you got an office action you don't understand (especially a likelihood-of-confusion refusal or an ornamental-use refusal), or if you're filing in a crowded category such as apparel, restaurants, supplements, alcohol, or consumer software.

This post is general information, not legal advice. For a specific filing, talk to a trademark attorney.

Have a finished logo before you file

Your application needs an actual mark on file. If you're filing the design itself, you submit a logo image. If you're filing the business name as a wordmark first (which many founders do while the logo is still evolving), you just need the text, not the styled version. Registering a design that's likely to change in three months means refiling later, so it's worth knowing which one you're committing to.

Brandize takes a short description of your business and gives you back a finished logo: SVG files, color codes, font references. If you have been waiting to finalize the visual side before filing, that is the step it removes.