A search costs

$240, and about a week. You get a written opinion on whether your name is available and, when it isn't, what sits too close to it.

Trademark searching and filing

Find out before you file.

Most refused applications were refusable on day one — somebody already held the name, or it described the goods too plainly to be owned, or it went in under the wrong class. A search finds all three before the office fee is spent.

What it costs The letters that will arrive

A refusal costs

The office fee, which is not returned, plus the months. And you learn about it late — usually after the packaging has been printed.

Why applications get refused

Somebody already has it

Not necessarily an identical name. A mark that is confusingly similar in a related class is enough, and not having known about it is no defence.

It describes what you sell

Nobody owns "Fresh Bread" for a bakery. The more plainly your name says what you do, the less of it you can keep anyone else from using.

The wrong class

Registration is per class of goods and services. Filing in one that doesn't cover what you actually sell buys a certificate and no protection at all.

It's a surname, a place or an emblem

Family names, geography and official emblems each have their own rules, and they catch people out late in the process.

Check my name

The letters that will arrive after you file

Applications are published, so your name and address become a matter of public record. Within weeks, official-looking invoices start arriving from private companies you have never dealt with.

They look official — Crests, a reference number, a deadline and an amount to pay
They are not the office — Private directories and "publication" services, selling nothing of value
The sums are large — Often several hundred, sometimes far more — and paying once puts you on a list
What to do with one — Send it to us. You'll have an answer the same day
What genuine looks like — Real fees come from the office, and we will have told you they were coming

We warn every client before it happens, because the letters are convincing and the first one usually lands while you are still nervous about the process.

What a registration is, and isn't

What it gives you — A registered right you can point at, in the classes you actually filed
What it doesn't do — Stop anybody by itself. Enforcing it is a separate decision, and it is yours
Where it applies — Only where you registered it. There is no worldwide trademark, whatever you are told
How long it lasts — Indefinitely, provided you keep using it and keep renewing it
Who can attack it — Third parties, by opposing while it is pending or challenging it later for non-use
Who decides any of it — The office examines it; a tribunal or a court decides a dispute. Never your attorney

What we charge

Search only

$240 one name

A written availability opinion
Identical and similar marks
The classes we'd recommend
No obligation to file anything

Start with a search

Search and file

$780 one class

Everything in the search
The application drafted and filed
Office correspondence handled
We check every invoice you're sent
Renewal reminders, for as long as you hold it

Search and file

$1,180 three classes

Everything above, in three classes
Class scope argued rather than guessed
A written note on what each class covers
And a note on what it does not

Ask about classes

Office fees are separate, set by the registry and paid to them rather than to us — you see that figure before committing to anything. More classes means more cost now and more to defend later, which is why we talk people down to fewer far more often than up.

★★★★★

“They told me in the first week that the name I loved wasn't registrable, and why, for the price of the search. I'd have found that out the slow and expensive way.”

Priya S.

Search only

★★★★★

“The first fake invoice arrived and I already knew exactly what it was, because they had warned me it would. I would absolutely have paid it.”

Tom E.

Two classes

Check a name

Tell us the name and what you sell. We run a quick look before quoting anything.

Check a name

If your name is clearly unavailable we'll tell you that for nothing, rather than sell you a search that ends the same way.

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