Understanding trademark law can be complicated, especially when you're trying to protect your brand. While the costs can be worrisome, hiring a trademark attorney is often very important. Since the USPTO only approves about half of trademark applications, having a good lawyer is really helpful. In 2024, the cost of an attorney can vary greatly.
The only way this won't affect the cost of hiring is if you choose to work with an attorney who supports a fixed fee structure. This means that they won't charge you any additional fees, regardless of how often they respond to office actions. We'll give more details on this when we look at the pricing structure of trademark attorneys below. Another fee structure used by trademark attorneys is a flat fee model. This means that the lawyer charges a fixed fee for their services, regardless of the time spent working on the case.
A mixed rate agreement combines fixed and hourly rate structures. For example, an attorney may charge a fixed fee for filing the application and an hourly rate for additional services, such as responding to office requests or overseeing brands. While this structure can be adapted to different levels of work, it can result in higher overall costs, making it difficult for customers to budget accurately. In 2024, knowing how much a trademark attorney costs is important for keeping your brand safe. The price may change depending on a few things, such as the lawyer's experience, the type of brand you need, and the complexity of your case.
Hastings St. If you ask the right questions and review the attorney's fee agreement, you can find a qualified and experienced attorney who can help you protect your trademark and achieve your legal goals. If you communicate well and support the trademark attorney in the application process, they are more likely to work well together and file an excellent trademark application. There are many factors that can make the cost of hiring a trademark attorney go up or down, such as location or state, whether the law firms are large versus small versus those that work alone, the lawyer's level of experience, and the services they offer (for example, whether or not the lawyer will perform an authorization search for you).
For example, a trademark lawyer who has been practicing for many years may charge more than a new lawyer who has just started to practice his profession. This means that you'll need an attorney to help you solve any problems or complications, which would be easier if you were just starting out with an attorney. For simple types of trademark office actions, a trademark attorney charges at least a few hundred dollars. Friends, family or colleagues who have been through the trademark registration process or who have previously worked with a trademark attorney may have valuable suggestions. These are difficult to predict, but the usual amount of time an attorney spends responding to an office action is four to eight hours.
This section will analyze the most common pricing structures used by trademark attorneys and provide an overview of the average costs. UpCounsel's attorneys come from law schools such as Harvard Law and Yale Law and have an average of 14 years of legal experience, including working with or for companies such as Google, Menlo Ventures, and Airbnb. This is another reason why hiring an attorney will save you money, since he or she will complete it correctly the first time. And of course, all of these fees are independent of the USPTO processing fees that you'll have to pay regardless of whether you hire an attorney or not. If you don't want to file a trademark application yourself, but don't want to bear the expense of hiring an attorney, an intermediate solution is to use an online legal service such as LegalZoom.
