How to Trademark a Logo

Understand What Registering a Logo Actually Covers

A logo trademark, called a design mark, protects the specific stylized image, including its distinctive layout, font treatment, or icon, as used to identify your goods or services. This is different from a word mark, which protects a business name or slogan as plain text regardless of styling. If your logo includes both a distinctive graphic element and readable text, you may want to register the word mark and the design mark separately, since each protects a different element and a change to one doesn't require refiling the other.

Search Before You File

Search the USPTO's Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) for both the text within your logo and visually similar marks, since trademark conflicts can exist even when the wording differs if the overall commercial impression is too similar. TESS allows searching by design codes, a classification system for visual elements like shapes, symbols, and layouts, which is specifically useful for logo searches beyond a simple text search. A thorough search reduces the risk of spending the filing fee only to have the application rejected or opposed later.

Decide Your Filing Basis

You can file based on "use in commerce," if you're already selling goods or services under the logo, or "intent to use," if you plan to use it soon but haven't started yet. An intent-to-use application still eventually requires proof of actual use before registration completes, so this basis buys you time to secure the mark while finalizing a product launch, not a way to avoid the use requirement altogether.

Prepare Your Drawing and Specimen

Your application needs a clear drawing of the logo exactly as you use it, in the correct image format the USPTO requires. If you're filing on a use-in-commerce basis, you also need a specimen: real-world evidence of the logo as customers actually encounter it, such as a product label, packaging, a screenshot of your website displaying the logo in connection with your services, or signage. A mockup or design file alone generally isn't an acceptable specimen; it has to show actual commercial use.

Choose the Correct Class or Classes

Trademark registration is tied to specific classes of goods or services, not a general claim over the logo in every context. Identify every class relevant to your business, since the $350 base fee applies per class, and registering in only the class that covers your current products may leave a gap if you expand into a different category later.

File Through TEAS

Submit your application electronically through the USPTO's Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS), along with the per-class fee. After filing, an examining attorney reviews the application, which can result in an office action requesting clarification or raising an objection, a normal part of the process rather than necessarily a rejection. Respond to any office action within the stated deadline, since missing it can cause the application to be abandoned.

Use the Right Symbol While You Wait

While your application is pending, use "TM" next to your logo rather than the registered trademark symbol "®," which is reserved for marks that have actually completed federal registration. Using "®" before registration is complete can undermine your own application and carries its own legal risk.

Maintain the Registration After It's Granted

A granted trademark registration isn't permanent without upkeep: it requires a Declaration of Use between the fifth and sixth year after registration, and renewal filings afterward, to stay active. Mark these deadlines as part of your business's ongoing compliance calendar, since letting a registration lapse means starting the process over if you want the protection back.

A Redesigned Logo May Need a New Application

If you significantly redesign your logo after registering it, the new version may not be covered by your existing registration, depending on how different the overall commercial impression is. Check with a trademark attorney before assuming an old registration still protects an updated logo.

State Entity Registration Doesn't Cover This

Registering your business name with the state as an LLC or corporation has no bearing on your logo's trademark status; those are entirely separate systems. A state-approved business name can still infringe someone else's registered trademark, and a state filing provides no trademark rights of its own.

Common Law Rights Exist Even Without Registration

Using a logo in commerce creates some trademark rights automatically, limited to the specific geographic area where you've actually used it, even without federal registration. Federal registration through the USPTO expands that protection nationwide and provides stronger legal tools if someone infringes it, which is the main reason to register rather than rely on common law rights alone.

An Attorney Can Help With a Close Call

If your search turns up a similar existing mark and you're unsure whether it's too close, a trademark attorney can assess the risk before you invest in filing, branding materials, and marketing built around a logo that might ultimately face an opposition.

This Is Not Legal Advice

Trademark law involves fact-specific judgment calls about similarity, classes of goods, and likelihood of confusion that go beyond this general overview. Talk to a trademark attorney if your logo is central to your brand or your search raises any question about a possible conflict.