How to trademark a document [New Research]

Last updated : Sept 6, 2022

How much is a trademark in Maryland?

To apply to register a trade or service mark, a person files: an application on a form prepared by the Secretary of State; three (3) specimens of the mark as used in commerce; and. a fee of $50 (check made payable to the Secretary of State).

What is the cheapest way to trademark something?

The basic cost to trademark a business name ranges from $225 to $600 per trademark class. This is the cost to submit your trademark application to the USPTO. The easiest and least expensive way to register your trademark is online, through the USPTO's Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS).

Can you trademark a word or symbol?

A trademark can be any word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination of these things that identifies your goods or services.

How do I trademark a word?

1. Consult a trademark attorney. Trademarking a word is a complex process, so talk to a trademark attorney early in your planning.
2. Check for eligibility.
3. Register domain names.
4. Establish ownership.
5. File an Intent to Use.
6. File a Trademark Application.
7. Pay the filing fee.

How long does a trademark last?

A federal trademark lasts 10 years from the date of registration, with 10-year renewal terms. Between the fifth and sixth year after the registration date, the registrant must file an affidavit to state that the mark is still in use.

How much is a trademark worth?

Trademarks can have no value, or can be very valuable indeed – it all depends on the business associated with the mark!

Can you trademark for free?

You can not register a trademark for free. However, you can establish something known as a "common law trademark" for free, simply by opening for business. The benefit of relying on common law trademark rights is that it's free, and you don't need to do any specific work filling out forms, etc.

What is a trademark vs copyright?

Copyright protects original work, whereas a trademark protects items that distinguish or identify a particular business from another. Copyright is generated automatically upon the creation of original work, whereas a trademark is established through common use of a mark in the course of business.

Are trademarks easy?

Registering a trademark is a fairly straightforward process that you can complete in just a few easy steps. This guide will walk you through each step needed to register and trademark your brand name, and answer some frequently asked questions about registering your trademark.

What words Cannot be trademarked?

• Proper names or likenesses without consent from the person.
• Generic terms, phrases, or the like.
• Government symbols or insignia.
• Vulgar or disparaging words or phrases.
• The likeness of a U.S. President, former or current.
• Immoral, deceptive, or scandalous words or symbols.
• Sounds or short motifs.

Can I use TM without registering?

The (TM) symbol actually has no legal meaning. You can use the symbol on any mark that your company uses without registering it. The most common use of the TM symbol is on a new phrase, logo, word, or design that a company plans to register through the USPTO.

Can I apply for a trademark myself?

Any layman who wants to register a trademark can apply himself. But when the practical applicability is considered, appointing an attorney will ease the process to register a trademark. Certain procedures are to be followed to apply for a trademark. An application is filed.

What are some 5 examples of trademarks?

• Under Armour®
• Twitter®
• It's finger lickin' good! ®
• Just do it®
• America runs on Dunkin'®

What are the three types of trademarks?

What you'll learn: Arbitrary and Fanciful Trademarks. Suggestive Trademarks. Descriptive Trademarks.

How much does it cost to copyright a word?

The fee at the U.S. Copyright Office is $ 55 for most applications, or $ 35 if your application (1) has one author, and (2) the author is also the owner, and (3) you are just registering a single work (not a collection of photos), and (4) it was not a work made for hire.

How long does a trademark take to get approved?

Usually, the process takes 12 to 18 months. Registering your trademark is a complex procedure that involves your application moving through various stages. Learning about each stage in the process will help you understand why getting a trademark takes as long as it does.

Can you lose a trademark if you don't protect it?

If you don't enforce your trademark, you risk losing reputation, business, sales, customers, and more to the infringer. There's also a concept in trademark law called abandonment. Generally, if you don't use your mark for three years or more, it's considered abandoned.

How much does it cost to file a trademark for a phrase?

If you have ever asked yourself how much does it cost to trademark a phrase, according to the current fee schedule on the USPTO, trademark registration fees cost $275 per mark per class. If you need an attorney's assistance, the cost averages around $1,000 to $2,000.

Do trademarks make money?

Trademarks have become so valuable because they actually generate revenue. Trademarks help distinguish your company and its products and services from the competition, making it easier to build trust with customers and, ultimately, attract and retain them.

Can I trademark my name?

You can trademark your name if it has business or commercial value. Trademarking your name gives you an additional brand and keeps others from using your name. To trademark your name you must meet specific requirements with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

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hey y'all so having your llc does not mean that you own your brand name in order to own your brand name you must have a federal trademark registration what if i told you that you can file your trademark without hiring an attorney yes it's true and we are going to go step by step of how to file a trademark application without spending all the big bucks with hiring an attorney so welcome back to my channel i am boss attorney bri and this is the place for influencers and content creators to come to boss up their business the legal and legit way like i said we are going to be discussing how you file a trademark on your own without an attorney as we know trademarks fall under the law and it is always recommended that you hire an attorney to help you file your trademark but also as being an attorney and working with a lot of new business owners i understand that filing a trademark with an attorney can be really really expensive and using a document preparation service such as legal zoom or trademark engine can end up making you waste the money because they are not doing the research of an attorney so today i am going to be walking you through the steps to file your trademark application on your own without spending the big money with the attorneys and without wasting money by using a document preparation service so let's get started the first step to filing your trademark application comes way before you actually click that button to file the trademark application the first thing you must do before you file your trademark is to do a trademark search with the united states patent and trademark office that website is uspto.gov and you will go there and do a basic trademark search to make sure that your name is still available as a trademark also remember when you are searching your trademark name it is important to realize that just because a name is not on the register does not mean that there may be someone else out there using the name so on top of searching the uspto make sure you also search social media and google in general to make sure that your name is not being used another important step to searching your trademark name is to check for variations of the name because to have a trademark you do not necessarily need to have the same name conflicting with you you may also get denied if you have a similar name conflicting with you so make sure that you check your name and you check the variation of spelling of your name another thing to realize when searching your trademark is that your trademark must be strong enough to survive as a trademark so just because you don't see a name out there on the uspto that someone is using the name they may still be out there so that is why it's really important to search google because if your name is considered generic or descriptive someone may not try to register that name but they may already be out there so make sure that your name is unique when you are filing a trademark the next step to filing your trademark is still before you actually file your trademark you are going to want to determine what class of goods or service that your trademark application will fall under you can figure out what class your trademark falls under by searching the uspto's id manual by typing in the word of the goods or the products or services that your company sells you will be able to find what class of goods or service you fall into it is important to search all products or services that you have and the ones that you intend to expand into so that you can list each one of those things within the same application because if you register your trademark and you say that you're doing apparel but you only register for t-shirts but it turns out that you're also doing leggings and pants and sweatshirts then you may not be fully protected under your trademark it's really important to determine what class your products and services fall into because you do not want to end up applying for the same trademark in the same class because that is going to increase the amount of money that you pay in addition you want to know what class your products or services fall under because if they do not fall within the same category and you file that application together you are going to end up paying more than one fee because each class of goods or services require that you pay an additional application fee so it is super important that you know which classes your products and services fall under because that way you can determine how much money you are going to end up paying before you actually submit the application the third step is to actually file your trademark application you file your trademark application online on uspto.gov it will require you to create an account so that you can file the application and then you will begin to fill out the information the first page of the application includes general information such as the owner's name whether you're an llc your address and any other contact information that that page asks you for the next page asks you to enter your trademark on this page you will upload either your logo or you will type your name in plain text depending on what type of trademark you are filing for once you do that you will submit specimens specimens are proof that you are using your trademark so you have to show the government that you are actually using the trademark before you can actually get a trademark registration there is an intent to use application that at the time that you submit your application you do not have to show that you are actually using the trademark you can submit the application without the specimens or without the proof that you are actually using the trademark but before your trademark registers you will have to show proof that you are using that trademark in commerce so basically you are putting it out there for people to be able to buy your product or service and then of course you can review your application you sign it you pay and it will give you your receipt and your application number so that you can easily find your trademark application once your trademark application is submitted the uspto will assign an examiner to your application typically this will take about three months but at the time of this recording the uspto is really behind in assigning examiners to applications so you can expect to wait up to five months maybe even longer depending on what category you are filing in once that examiner gets your application they have the choice to accept your application or issue an office action to you that is a refusal for the uspto to register your trademark for whatever reason okay so filing for a trademark is not guaranteed so it's really important that you have all the correct information put into your application to give you a better chance of getting your trademark registered the trademark process altogether generally takes 8 to 12 months but again like i said at the time of this recording they are pretty backed up so it could end up taking longer depending on what class your trademark is in and how many confusingly similar marks there are if you have any questions ab

Thanks for your comment Thad Katzner, have a nice day.
- Alishia Gurule, Staff Member

hey this is attorney elizabeth potts weinstein and today we're going to talk about how to file your own trademark application with the united states patent and trademark office including a step-by-step tutorial of exactly how to do it on the uspto.gov website in this video i'm assuming that you already have most of the stuff put together for your trademark application and you're ready to go if you don't have that stuff done check out this playlist and you will get all the step-by-step bits of informations and decisions you need to have already done before you get started with your filing so the first thing to do is to go to the uspto.gov website here we have the website for uspto.gov united states patent and trademark office if you go under trademarks you can go to apply online under apply online are a bunch of different categories for forms now if you're just filing for the first time you're going to be doing the initial application form but there's also all the other forms are accessible here so if you need to respond to something from the trademark office file your intent to use forms which i will talk about later change your address any of that kind of stuff you can find those forms here so you're gonna go to initial application forms now with the united states patented trademark office there's one online application system but you have two different categories of filings one is the plus and the other is the standard there's a number of differences between them but the biggest difference besides one of them being less expensive than the other is that with the plus you have to select from a list of classes and with the standard you can make up your own class or description of your products and services i highly recommend that if it's at all possible you select the plus not just to save money but because if you are picking your class from a list of classes you're going to have formatted it correctly and also will make it much faster and easier for them to approve your application the only time we really use this standard is if what my client is doing we just can't find anything on the list that is even remotely applicable or we're applying the united states basing it upon a foreign application from another country and their descriptions are so different we want to use their descriptions here in this filing to the extent possible there are also additional statements that are required in the plus application that you must make at the time of application the ones that typically come up the most are the name of a living person or that your trademark includes reference to a specific geographic area so i can file a trademark with my name in it however i have to give permission to myself to file that application so this is something to be aware of if you're doing a plus application this list also applies to you not just the class selection so let's say we're ready to apply so we're going to start the application the next thing you're going to need to do is to log in if you don't have a login and email for the uspto.gov then you can create one otherwise you need to log in with you log with an email address a password they also have a second level of authentication the next screen you come to is the beginning of the application there is a video that you can watch i recommend doing that because it's always great to get more information and this is a dynamic application so when you select things it will change what the next questions are also be aware that if you have inactivity it will log you out you can save your session though and come back to it later and that's what this is about if you save your session then you have to upload a file to create it back in so here i'm going to pretend that i'm not an attorney filing the application i'm going to pretend that i'm doing this myself and i'm gonna pretend i'm doing a t e t e a s plus application so the first screen is who is the owner of this trademark now if you are a sole proprietorship then or you're filing as an individual inventor then it will be you but if you have an llc or a corporation it'll probably belong to that business instead of you personally so let's say my i have a llc called potsfeinstein llc and that's going to be the owner of the mark then i click limited liability company for the entity type and it's going to change what some of these questions are so it will take a minute to load now i have to select what state it's in or if it's not in the u.s then you select this sometimes i run into an issue where someone has a business that's from another country and so they so their entities are have different names but the trademark office does have places for you to put that information to now we're going to put the mailing address main street this is a made up address well it might actually exist but that's not my address okay now domicile address this is something that's very important for anybody who is using their mailing address that's not your physical location you have to have a physical location address in here this physical location address will not appear on the publicly available database so you don't have to worry about that from a privacy perspective but you have to have an address so they know that you're physically located here in the united states if you are not physically located here in the united states then you're gonna have to have an attorney who's located here to represent you i don't necessarily think that rule is fair but that's just the rule so let's assume that this is actually my physical location you can put in a phone number and fax number you don't have to put in a phone number but sometimes the trademark examiner will call you because you messed up something your application that is relatively straightforward to fix so if you don't put a phone number in here there's nobody they can call they might email you but some examiners are not into email otherwise they'll have to issue an office action which is a lot more complicated so i'm going to put in an email address this is my business email address you can also put in the website for your business i recommend doing this so when they do a search and you come up for your own trademark they know that it's you so i'm gonna put in my website address then i hit continue it's going to look at everything i filled out and give me information about things that i missed or i messed up in the filing so it tells me that i did not enter a telephone number i'm just going to skip it for right now but generally i'd recommend putting in one it does not get listed publicly so you don't have to worry about that now i can finally put in my trademark so i'm going to use the trademark that we talked about in one of the other videos which is irene whoops i on the trail this is a person who has a business about hiking irene is not this person's name irene they're using as an abstract concept now here's special standard characters special form sound mark those are the different kinds of trademarks so a special form a lot of times would be a logo i'm not going to go into sound marks that's fairly rare for someone to do but th

Thanks Alex your participation is very much appreciated
- Alishia Gurule

About the author

Alishia Gurule

I've studied petrology at Bates College in Lewiston and I am an expert in limnology. I usually feel thankful. My previous job was foreman I held this position for 10 years, I love talking about quilting and bonsai. Huge fan of Adam Brody I practice athletics and collect first day covers.