The Ultimate Guide to How to Trademark a Logo
Trademarking a logo can help a business defend its brand, stop unauthorized use and build long-term value
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If you’ve designed a logo for your business, you likely invested time and energy to create a distinct and memorable symbol that represents the product and ethos of your company. That effort is worth protecting with a trademark.
Benefits of trademarking your logo
There are different levels of legal safeguards, and whether you go through the procedure yourself or outsource to a legal service for assistance, the most stringent protections may be lengthy and costly processes.
But there are also plenty of perks too:
- Authority to use your logo. By trademarking your logo, you’re legally establishing it as your own — meaning you’re the only one who can use the mark.
- Suing for trademark infringement. You can sue anyone who uses your logo without authorization and, if successful, receive compensation for damages.
- Trademark outside of the U.S. After you’ve trademarked your logo in the United States, you qualify to trademark your logo in other countries as well.
- Confiscation of goods. You have the ability to stop the import of foreign goods that infringe on your trademark.website
Levels of trademark protection
You can choose from three levels of trademark protection: local, state and federal. The level you chose will dictate the cost.
1. Local trademarks
When you use your logo in everyday business activities, you’re automatically entitled to certain regional protections under common law. The common law trademark is the least costly, but provides minimal protection. You’d likely win a lawsuit in your local jurisdiction against someone who copied your logo, but you might not have the same success outside of your region.
2. State trademarks
If you conduct business exclusively within one state, you might trademark your logo with that state. Although it's less expensive and a simpler process than the federal level, a state trademark limits protections to a single geographical area and the extent will vary according to the laws of the state.
3. Federal trademarks
The final and most costly option is to trademark your logo on the federal level through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
The USPTO process is complex and time-consuming but gives you the greatest legal protections.
If the USPTO grants your application, it will place your logo on the Principal Register, which grants you:
- Legal ownership and exclusive use of your logo throughout the entire United States.
- The ability to file a business lawsuit in federal court against anyone who might infringe upon your rights, and the capacity to collect appropriate damages from any winning claims.
- Authority to contact U.S. Customs and Border Protection and request that it confiscate any unauthorized imports with your logo on them.
- The right to register your trademark in other countries and to receive the full protection of their applicable laws.
- The use of the ® symbol beside your logo.
The larger your company, the more likely you are to need these protections.
How to get a logo trademarked with the USPTO
Use the following steps to federally trademark your logo.
Step 1: Ensure your logo meets USPTO guidelines.
Any item submitted for trademark must not already be in use by a previous applicant or be too similar to an existing trademark. You or your attorney can check at the federal level whether your logo is unique with a search of the trademark database on the USPTO’s website.
The USPTO exists to protect the rights of the business owner, but is also concerned about the consumer experience. Here are two common reasons your trademark may be denied:
- Likelihood of confusion: If your logo closely resembles another company’s logo in a similar industry, yours may not get approved. Trademarks serve as unique identifiers so aligning too close to another business entity’s trademark may likely cause confusion.
- Misleading: If a logo doesn’t clearly represent the type of product it claims to sell or is suggestive of another sort of item altogether, USPTO may reject the application.
Step 2: Categorize your product.
When you submit your trademark application, you’ll describe the good(s) or service(s) your logo symbolizes.
The USPTO designates 45 different classes that your goods or services may fall into — including, for example, a class that incorporates chemical products, another for cosmetics and another for machines and power-operated tools.
If you fail to appropriately classify your product using precise words, the USPTO may not accept your petition. This is an area where parsing words is crucial and the advice of a legal trademark expert can prove invaluable.
Step 3: Submit a “specimen” showing how your logo is used.
The USPTO requires a commercial example of your logo in use, called a “specimen,” to approve your application.
Specimens for products
An adequate specimen for a product might include:
- Photographs of your logo on the item you sell.
- A picture of the packaging or tags for your product that features your logo.
- A photograph of a physical display in a store that sells your goods where your logo is prominently featured.
Product specimens must demonstrate the use of your logo in the process of monetary exchange between you and your customer. This means items like brochures, catalogs, press releases and business cards won’t work as appropriate specimens in the goods category.
Specimens for services
If you are a service provider, the rules for a specimen are more relaxed:
- Materials used to advertise your company or in the course of daily business will suffice.
- Items need only show a “direct association” between your logo and the services you offer and explain the nature of those services.
- A sign, invoice, stationery or screenshots of a website where you offer your services are all acceptable specimens in this category, so long as the wording beside your logo clarifies the nature of your business.
You’ll need to submit a specimen for each type of good or service associated with your logo, if there’s more than one, and pay the appropriate fees for each.
Step 4: Wait for a reply from the USPTO.
You’ll receive confirmation from the USPTO right away that your application has been submitted, but it’s likely to be several months before you receive further communication. The application process can take 12 to 18 months, and sometimes longer if any issues arise that require resolution.
In the meantime, you can check the status of your application in the Trademark Status and Document Retrieval database. Use the serial number provided on your initial receipt to retrieve information about your petition. You can also check the current average processing times for applications.
Step 5: Correct application errors, if any.
If the USPTO rejects your application based on an administrative or regulatory issue that you can resolve, you’ll have the opportunity to correct the problem. If the agency refused your petition because of an inherent flaw in your logo or similarity to an existing trademark or application, you’ll have to go back and start the process again.
If you receive an Office Action, you have six months from the date of mailing to submit the requested corrections, or the USPTO will mark your application as abandoned. If your submission does not satisfy the examining attorney, you'll be issued a final refusal of your application. You can appeal this denial to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB), but plan to incur extra fees.
If the examining attorney approves your application, your logo will be published in the Official Gazette. This regulation is a holdover from pre-internet days, and theoretically puts the public on notice that your logo is soon to be a registered trademark. If anyone believes they might be harmed by this registration, they have 30 days to file their grievances with the USPTO.
If no one files, (and unless you’re a Fortune 500 company, it’s unlikely anyone will) your logo officially becomes a federally registered trademark — with all the rights and protections.
Step 6: Maintain your trademark rights.
To maintain your protected status, you’ll need to submit a Declaration of Incontestability to the USPTO every five years. If you neglect to file this renewal, you’ll have a six-month grace period in which you can still file — this will cost additional fees, however.
If you fail to submit these forms entirely, though, the USPTO will consider your logo abandoned and you will lose all of your legal intellectual property protections.
There’s no limit to the number of times you can renew your trademark, as long as your logo remains in commercial use.
Step 7: Enforce protections against infringement.
To ensure that no other business uses their logo improperly or without their permission, many companies engage in what’s called a trademark watch. The larger your company, the more you may need this type of service.
Usually, a business will hire a legal firm or other specialized company to engage in a trademark watch. These representatives will send cease-and-desist letters if they encounter a logo that’s similar to yours, and will also engage in litigation to enforce your intellectual property.
If you’re a smaller business, this step may not be necessary — nevertheless, it’s always a good idea to keep an eye out for trademark infringement and assert your rights under trademark protection if needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to trademark a logo?
The cost depends on which level of trademark protection you choose:
- Local protection: no cost.
- State protection: varies by state, but can range from $30 (Alabama) to $70 (California).
- Federal protection: calculated on a per-class basis, but the base application fee starts at $350 per class.
What’s the difference between trademarks, copyrights and patents?
The difference between copyrights and trademarks comes down to the type of material you’re trying to legally safeguard.
Trademarks protect a “mark” of a “trade” — things like company names, slogans or logos. Copyrights protect creative content of your business — such as a movie, song or manuscript. Patents protect inventions — either the intricacies of how something works or conversely, how something looks.
A version of this article was first published on Fundera, a subsidiary of NerdWallet.
