What a trademark costs
There are two separate costs, and only one of them is the attorney. Here is what sits in each, and what moves the number.
Two separate costs get confused with each other constantly: the fee the trademark office charges to process an application, and the fee an attorney charges to prepare and prosecute it.
The government fee is set by the trademark office, is charged per class of goods or services, and is the same whoever files. It is published, it changes from time to time, and nobody can discount it. The professional fee is separate, and it is where firms differ — not only in amount but in what you actually get.
Filings here are a flat fee
For trademark filings the firm quotes a flat fee rather than billing by the hour, so the cost is known before the work starts rather than accumulating as it goes. The fee is quoted after an initial conversation, once it is clear what is actually being protected and in how many classes.
What the fee covers
The number matters less than what sits behind it. A filing here includes:
- An initial consultation, at no charge, to work out what needs protecting
- Clearance searching, to find conflicts before they become expensive
- Drafting and preparation of the application by an attorney
- Filing and prosecution with the trademark office
- Docketing — the deadlines are tracked so renewals are not missed
That last item is worth pausing on. A registration that lapses because a maintenance deadline passed unnoticed costs far more to deal with than it did to file.
What moves the number
- How many classes. Both the government fee and the work scale with the number of classes, since each is effectively its own application.
- Whether it is domestic or international. Protection is country-by-country; filing abroad means additional applications and fees.
- What the search turns up. A crowded field takes more judgment than an empty one, and sometimes the honest advice is to change the name.
What is not flat
Work that cannot be scoped in advance is billed hourly rather than as a flat fee. That mainly means contested and unpredictable matters — responding to a refusal, an opposition, or an enforcement dispute. Those depend on what the other side does.
The cost that catches people out
It is rarely the filing fee. It is discovering a conflict after the packaging is printed, the signage is up, the domain is bought and the listings are live. Clearing a name beforehand is a fraction of the cost of changing it afterwards, and it is the single step most often skipped.
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This page is legal information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney–client relationship.