How to Trademark a Name: A Step-by-Step Guide

"Trademarking a name" is shorthand for a specific legal process: filing an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to register a word, phrase or logo as a mark for particular goods or services. It's not a single click — it's a sequence of decisions, most of which happen before you ever submit a form.

Step 1: Clear the name before you fall in love with it

Before anything else, check whether the name is already spoken for. A clearance search looks at registered and pending marks in the same or related fields, plus common-law use, to estimate the risk of a conflict. Doing this first can save you from naming a company, printing merchandise or building a domain around a name you'll have to abandon later.

Step 2: Know what you're actually protecting

A trademark doesn't protect a name in the abstract — it protects a name as used on specific goods or services. "Atlas" the software company and "Atlas" the moving company can coexist because they operate in unrelated fields and customers aren't likely to confuse them. That's why the next step, choosing classes, matters as much as the name itself.

Step 3: Pick the right Nice classes

Every US trademark application is filed under one or more of the 45 international Nice classes — a system that groups goods and services so examiners and the public can find and compare marks. A SaaS product is usually Class 9 (downloadable software) and often Class 42 (software as a service); a physical product falls under its own goods class. Filing under the wrong class is one of the most common — and most expensive — mistakes founders make. Our guide to trademark classes walks through how to pick correctly.

Step 4: Choose your filing basis

• 1(a) — Use in commerce: you're already selling the goods or offering the services under this mark.
• 1(b) — Intent to use: you haven't launched yet but have a genuine intent to use the mark soon.
• Section 44 — Based on a foreign application or registration in a treaty country.
• Section 66(a) — Based on an international registration through the Madrid Protocol.

Most US startups file 1(a) if they're already live, or 1(b) if the name is locked in but the product isn't shipping yet. An intent-to-use filing still has to convert to actual use before it can register.

Step 5: File — and what happens next

You file electronically through the USPTO's Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS). The base government filing fee is roughly $350 per class under the current fee schedule — see the USPTO's official fee information for the exact current numbers, since fees change periodically and depend on the filing option you use.

1. An examining attorney reviews the application for conflicts and compliance — this typically takes several months to begin.
2. If there are issues, you'll receive an office action and get a set window to respond.
3. If it clears examination, the mark is published in the Official Gazette for a 30-day opposition period, during which third parties can challenge it.
4. If nobody opposes (or the opposition is resolved in your favor), the mark proceeds to registration — for a 1(a) application. A 1(b) application first gets a Notice of Allowance and needs a Statement of Use before it registers.

Mistakes that sink applications

• Filing without a clearance search, then getting refused for likelihood of confusion with an existing mark.
• Choosing a name that's merely descriptive of the goods or services (descriptive marks are hard to register and weak to enforce).
• Filing under the wrong class, so the registration doesn't actually cover what you sell.
• Missing office action deadlines, which can cause the whole application to go abandoned.
• Assuming a business entity name (registered with a Secretary of State) is the same as a trademark. It isn't — entity registration doesn't give you trademark rights.

After registration, keep watching

You're not required to use an attorney for a straightforward US application, but one is often worth it for anything with real business value riding on it, or once an office action arrives — see do I need a trademark attorney for the trade-offs. Either way, registering isn't the finish line: trademark rights are enforced by their owners, not policed automatically by the USPTO. If a confusingly similar mark gets filed later and you don't oppose it in time, you can lose ground you already won. That's what ongoing trademark monitoring is for.