Standard Domestic & Foreign Trademarking Services

US Trademark Services

One of the best ways to prevent the onset of a legitimate domain name dispute is to take protective action in advance. Throughout the world, one of the best ways to do this is to register your trademark. While the standard for establishing an interest in a domain name is different than that used in trademark law, registering a trade or service mark, can be of assistance in a domain name dispute. The registration of a trade or service mark, in essence, announces to the world that your logo or unique phrase is your property. As a result of trademark registration, the owner is entitled to preserve his/her interest in the mark, and laws around the world are increasingly protective of that right.

The Internet allows any business to be conducted throughout the world. This often requires you to consider obtaining trademarks in many countries. If you fail to do so, you risk being sued for trademark infringement if you sell your goods or services in other countries. Defending lawsuits in foreign countries is very expensive. We can help you obtain Canadian, US and international trademarks.

Your choice of trademark is very important. A strong trademark will create a more valuable brand and help lower the risk of being sued for trademark infringement. We believe that our experience as both business start-up lawyers and trademark lawyers provides us with a competitive advantage over other trademark lawyers and trademark agents. We invite you to take advantage of our skills that we have developed over the last 16 years in helping thousands of business start-ups build better brands.

The competition for trademarks in the U.S. is particularly intense. This is because the risk of being sued for trademark infringement in the U.S. is much greater than elsewhere, in part because the U.S. is a more litigious society than most. Litigation in the US is very expensive. Therefore, in addition to protecting your domain name, trademark registrations in the U.S. further reduce your exposure to litigation.

The greater risk of being sued and the higher financial risk at stake means that it is particularly important to conduct thorough trademark searches. Make sure that you search both for federal and state trademarks as well as common law trademarks. The common law trademarks are the unregistered trademarks which are far more common. There are more than 17,000,000 common law trademarks in the U.S. compared with only 2,500,000 registered trademarks. These figures are constantly growing. Some of the common law searches are less thorough than others because they fail to search all of the available trademark databases; however, a comprehensive search is critical in providing the greatest possible protection.  

United States Trademark Application $699 + search and filing fees

If you sell your goods or services in the United States you are strongly advised to obtain a U.S. trademark.

We recommend that you order both a federal and a state trademark search, which we provide for US$200, as well as a common law trademark search, which we provide for US$250. The common law trademark search examines numerous databases. It is intended to discover trademarks and tradenames which are currently in use but not yet registered. If we do both searches and the filing we provide a 25% discount on the search fees. We offer this incentive to encourage you to protect your trademark to the fullest, which can only be done with thorough trademark searches.

The filing fee for a U.S. trademark is $325 US per class. You can choose to either apply under the Madrid Treaty process or the old process. We suggest you choose the Madrid Treaty process so that you have the option of later obtaining trademarks in those countries that are signatories to the Madrid Treaty. The Madrid Treaty creates a process to easily (but not cheaply) obtaining trademarks in all participating 77 countries.

Madrid Treaty Trademark Application

Once you have a Madrid Treaty trademark, you can apply for a trademark in any of the 77 signatory countries by making one application, paying the filing fee and also paying the usual trademark filing fees for each country in which you wish to obtain a trademark. (There is a fee calculator on the US trademark office website which can be found on our links page. Follow the Madrid Treaty links on the U.S. Trademark Office website.)

You do not automatically get the trademark in each of the countries, but you do enjoy a special set of rules for resolving conflicts with existing trademarks. Consequently, if you intend to sell your products internationally, you minimize your risks of infringement by applying as soon as possible.

For a free consultation regarding all your trademarking requirements contact Donald Moir at                1- 888-272-7771 (US & Canada).

Donald is a Canadian lawyer with over 20 years experience. He is a registered trademark agent in Canada and is recognized for practice as a foreign attorney (for Canadian-located trademark owners) at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.