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Thursday, January 23rd
Serving business owners since 2002, The Trademark Firm promises to offer legal services, internet search services, and more with zero hidden fees. They charge flat rates for their trademark registrations. However, there are some limitations. The company only works with wordmarks (so, no logos or slogans included). However, there are a range of other services related to trademarks offered by The Trademark Firm, so they'll cover you in other areas.
Hard to find the packages
To get started at The Trademark Firm, you'll need to use the dropdown menu on the top bar. This will take you to "services” or "trademark searches”. The site is a little clunky to navigate. You can find things like a Declaration of Use filing and monitoring services on the "services” link. However, several packages for filing trademark registrations require clicking through the "Take me to the Trademark Search Page” to find, which isn't the most intuitive.
Four main packages
There are a lot of options to choose from at The Trademark Firm. Most packages are complete, including a search of your trademark in a variety of legal databases, a professional opinion on how likely your wordmark is to succeed, filing prep for a single class, filing prep for USPTO office actions, and prep for filing a statement of use. The packages level up depending on how many wordmarks you want to search at the same time. Currently, The Trademark Firm offers:
You can also find packages that go beyond professional opinion and prep. Packages like the "A-Z” Package include filing (with no USPTO fees), prep for filing up to 5 time extensions for a statement of use, prep, and filing of a response, online monitoring of the application with updates sent to you, and electronic copies of your certificate and guidelines of use.
Pricing from $775 for wordmark searches
Pricing at The Trademark Firm is not cheap. The lowest-cost option for trademark registration (which does not include the fees to the USPTO) is the Single Shot Package which costs $775, and it only goes up from there. Here's what you can expect:
Legal advice, but not filing for most packages
The Trademark Firm offers access to legal advice no matter what package you choose, but the legal experts are not going to file for you unless you get the "A-Z” Package. The other options only do the research for you and help you prepare to file, but the final steps will be yours. Considering the high costs, we would have expected a little more hands-on help from The Trademark Firm.
Extras offered at high costs
You can also separately buy extensions to your trademark (Trademark Declaration of Use) for different sections which you will need to do every 5 years. The costs are also pretty high here, so make sure to get exactly what you need:
The Trademark Firm offers an additional monitoring service for new filings in all 50 states to watch out for other companies that might infringe on your trademark. This service ensures legal compliance of your trademark and notifies you of any renewal or maintenance filings you need to make with quarterly email updates. This comes at a fee of $390 per year.
No satisfaction guarantee
The Trademark Firm does not offer a refund policy or satisfaction guarantee. Its policy states that no one can guarantee that the USPTO will approve your application. So, the company does not make any promises to do so. However, with such high costs, it would be helpful to offer customers a refund policy (or at least some kind of recourse) if the trademark registration does not succeed.
No buzz for The Trademark Firm
We're a little concerned about the reputation of The Trademark Firm. The company currently does not have a page with the Better Business Bureau, and there are no reviews for The Trademark Firm online. While there are reviews for a company called The Trademark Company, research shows these are different firms. The only details we could find were for the law firm behind The Trademark Firm: Dawsey Co., L.P.A. According to online legal reviews, Mr. David Dawsey is "extremely knowledgeable” and very passionate about his work. However, there are almost no reviews about his work for trademarks, and the majority of his reviews are from peers rather than customers.
Not enough buzz to recommend
Due to finding almost no detail about The Trademark Firm from third-party review sites, we're a little wary to recommend this site for your trademark registration. Considering the high costs (with only some of them including application fees to the USPTO), The Trademark Firm falls near the bottom of our list. Hopefully, Mr. Dawsey can get his company's reputation up soon, and we can see some more buzz.
Are you getting started with a new business or planning a rebrand? Registering for a trademark is one of the most important steps in protecting your money-making venture. Registering for a trademark protects your intellectual property and grants you exclusive rights to the name within your industry. So, if you're the first one to think of Airbnb, for example, then that name can be trademarked within the hospitality industry.
There are plenty of things you can trademark too, not just your business name. According to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a trademark is defined as a "word, phrase, symbol, and/or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.” There are trademarks out there for slogans, logos, company designs, words, phrases, and sounds.
Brand names are some of the most popular trademarks, but there are plenty of ways to protect your property depending on what you're most worried about. And, you don't need to be working on a new company to trademark. If you've been in business for years and want to stand out from the pack, you can trademark your existing logo or brand slogan any time.
If you're thinking this sounds very in-depth, don't worry. The process is pretty simple. A trademark application is just a matter of doing research, filling out the forms, and submitting it to the USPTO. The hard part is waiting. Some trademarks can take six months (or more) to go through the review process. And, there are some pitfalls with applications that can be stressful.
For example, researching to figure out if your chosen business name is in use (or something too similar) can be a time-consuming and frustrating step. Since any marks or slogans that are too similar to existing trademarks will be rejected, you don't want to skip the research. If the USPTO rejects your application, you'll lose the fee you paid to apply. On the bright side, if you find an online trademark registration service, they'll do the work for you, and you don't have to stress at all.
Online trademark registration services can help you or your business protect your intellectual property without all the worry. These services offer faster and more convenient application processes that keep you from running into the pitfalls of applying directly through the USPTO yourself. Services for registering a trademark offer higher success rates, since getting your trademark is not guaranteed. A good trademark registration company will support you through the process. Many online trademark registration companies offer guarantees that ensure you get your trademark or get your money back.
If you're ready to jump into your trademark registration but don't know where to start, we've got you. Here are a few factors that can help you narrow the field as you choose the best online trademark registration company to get your logo, slogan, or design mark protected:
To help you get your next company name listed for your exclusive use, your new slogan registered, or your beautiful logo legally protected, Top Consumer Reviews has reviewed and ranked the top trademark registration companies online. This way, you can take the stress (and uncertainties) out of applying for your trademarks. You can hand the hard parts off to trained legal professionals and enjoy the more exciting parts of creating something new for your business or brand!
Select any 2 Trademark Registration Services to compare them head to head