TRADEMARK REGISTRATION

 

 

Legal Zoom offers many services to their online clients who are just starting out in business. These services include figuring out the type of business entity that is best for you, how to incorporate your business, and how to trademark your brand or logo. In this review we focus on the trademark process offered by Legal Zoom.

Legal Zoom offers a very simple 3-step process to register your trademark:

•  First, they ask you to complete their simple questionnaire. This is where you tell them about your business, what you want to trademark, and how it will be used. This usually takes about 15 minutes.

•  Second, they perform a comprehensive search of the federal and state databases for any similar matches.

•  Third, they will electronically file your trademark registration documents with the US Patent and Trademark office. At this point you sit back and wait to be notified of your approval.

The Legal Zoom trademark questionnaire guides you through a process where they learn more about your brand or logo. Each section of the questionnaire is complete with help buttons attached, so you can get additional clarifying information if you need it. There is also a customer support number listed on every page of the questionnaire, so at any time you can consult with a real person if necessary.

Legal Zoom costs can save you thousands of dollars over hiring a trademark attorney to provide these same services. When compared with other online trademark registration companies, they are very competitive, even while offering superior services. And, they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee - almost unheard of in this business.

Another quality service that Legal Zoom provides is Trademark Infringement Monitoring. How do you know if someone infringes on your trademark? The U.S. Trademark Office doesn't monitor this for you. Instead, Legal Zoom will watch over the federal trademark database as well as all 50 states, alerting you to any potential problems. This way you can stop any trademark infringement before it happens.

Legal Zoom is a professional, well-known company that has serviced over 1 million customers. They offer an easy-to-use website that is backed by the Better Business Bureau. Their simple trademark registration process sets the standard in the industry. Combined with their helpful customer support and service guarantee, Legal Zoom earns our highest rating.

 

 

My Corporation offers three different trademark services: a comprehensive trademark search, trademark registration, and a trademark watch.

The comprehensive trademark search starts at $199 and is designed to find out whether anyone else is using your business mark. The search can provide information on whether someone has a pending trademark registration at the Federal or State level. The search feature also checks for common law marks, including doing business as (DBA) names, business names, and more.

The next service offered by My Corporation is the trademark registration. This is the process of applying for your trademark so that no one else can use it. Depending on the type of registration you want (text only, or text and drawing), the cost starts at $129. You need to complete their online application by providing specific trademark information, as well as indicating the goods and services you will be selling. My Corporation will complete the registration for you and then give you all of the information you need to forward it to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The final service offered by My Corporation is the trademark watch. This is an annual, fee-based service that starts at $175. My Corporation will watch to see if your trademark is being illegally used. They monitor several areas including new trademark applications and domain names.

My Corporation offers quality trademark services for any new business owner. While all the services may not be necessary for your business, they are comprehensive and provide a full suite of trademark services. The website is professional and helpful. My Corporation is a good choice for trademark registration.

 

 

Trademark Center is a full-service trademark research and protection website. They have helped over 20,000 clients with trademark services since 1995. Trademark Center offers trademark searches, trademark registration, and trademark monitoring.

Trademark Center's comprehensive search includes Federal, State, and common law sources and starts at $295. An attorney will review the search results for each client.

Trademark registration, which starts at $300, also uses an attorney for application preparation. The fee includes legal follow up of the trademark application, including correspondence with the U.S. Trademark Office if necessary.

Trademark Center's monitoring service includes watching over the federal database as well as all 50 states, and runs $200 per year. The Trademark Center will send you monthly reports to let you know if anyone has infringed on your trademark.

Trademark Center offers a professional website with quality information about their product. They offer a toll-free number as well as basic information about trademarks. Although they offer a quality service, their prices are at the top end of those in our review.

 

 

Direct Legal offers a good service to business owners looking to trademark their logo or brand. The website offers a trademark guide that explains the trademark registration process. This guide is very thorough and includes the following categories:

•  What trademarks protect

•  Definitions

•  Governing law

•  Benefits of trademark registration

•  Acquiring trademarks

•  Use in commerce

•  Selecting a mark

•  Trademark search

•  Trademark symbols

•  Post-registration

•  Trademark infringement

Direct Legal can walk you through the basic trademark registration process for a $99 fee. This price includes the trademark application preparation, application review, and electronic filing. While this price sounds appealing, it does not include trademark searches - an important and necessary part of the trademark registration process. For this, you can expect to pay from $50 to $199 more, depending on the level of search you want to execute.

For an additional $159 per year, Direct Legal also offers a trademark monitoring service. They will watch over new applications to the federal trademark database that may be in conflict with your trademark. Note, this monitoring only extends to the federal database, and does not include the individual state databases.

Direct Legal offers a professional website with a variety of trademark registration options. However, the depth of service does not match our highest rates selections, and their prices are about the same.

 

 

TradeMark Express offers trademark services designed to protect your business. Their services include comprehensive trademark research (which includes Federal, State, and common law searches), preparation of the USPTO trademark application, and Canadian and European research.

TradeMark Express offers a comprehensive trademark research and registration package. The process starts with a check of your business name with the USPTO. Then TradeMark Express searches all the pending and registered Federal and State trademarks. If there are not any conflicts, you will be directed to speak to a trademark attorney. After this, the next step is a US National Common Law search to determine if you face any trade restrictions. Once you make it through all these steps without any conflicts, your US Federal Trademark application will be prepared and filed.

It is important to note that refunds will not be given if you decide not to use your trademark. Instead, TradeMark Express offers a "rollover" plan where you can use the existing funds towards the trademark of a new name within two years.

While TradeMark Express offers a lot of detail on their website, the layout is confusing and cumbersome. they could take some great steps in cleaning up the busy-ness of the site and making it easier to use. While the website is not overly impressive, it does provide a lot of information. And they do provide a link for online help and a toll-free number that you can call.

While TradeMark Express offers a dependable service, their website makes finding what you need difficult. Combined with prices that are at the top-end in our review, we recommend starting your trademark registration process with one of the higher-rated services.

 

 

My Law Daddy is an attorney-founded website that offers all kinds of legal services. Their trademark services include trademark searches, trademark applications, and trademark monitoring.

My Law Daddy charges the following fees for their trademark services:

•  Trademark searches - These fees start at $69 for a standard Federal search. A premium federal search plus state searches is $199, while a deluxe worldwide search runs $400.

•  Preparing and filing the federal trademark application - $149

•  Trademark monitoring services - This service is $100 for monthly monitoring, and $200 for weekly monitoring

My Law Daddy offers a decent website that is easy to use. They offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee on all their services, and provide a page of Frequently Asked Questions to help you research their options. Customer service representatives are reached through a toll-free number. However, we did not see any links for Better Business Bureau support or evidence that the website was backed by other credible sources.

While My Law Daddy provides a comprehensive range of trademark registration services, their fees run higher than our top selections and they don't provide the same level of help on their website.

 

 

Trademark My Name has been offering trademark registration services since 2003. The three services they offer are trademark searches, a trademark application process, and trademark monitoring and protection.

The basic trademark search includes searching the Federal trademark database to find out if there are any similar marks or similar sounding names to your trademark. Alternatively, you can purchase a comprehensive trademark search for $379, which scans all State, common law, and worldwide website name databases.

Trademark My Name will file the trademark registration on your behalf with the USPTO. If there are any formal objections from the Patent and Trademark Office, then Trademark My Name attorneys respond directly with the federal agency.

Trademark My Name also provides a monthly monitoring service for $99 per year, to guard against trademark infringement.

Trademark My Name is not a very professional website. While they explain their services and provide a basic level of trademark information, there is a lot more they could do to make their site easier to use. Combined with their comparatively high fee structure, we first recommend looking to one of our higher-rated selections.