A registered mark, filed by the attorney who searches it first
U.S. trademark clearance, filing, and prosecution before the USPTO, plus copyright registration. Flat legal fees, for founders and brands in Los Angeles and across California. Foreign brands and foreign counsel: direct U.S. representation for USPTO trademark matters, at foreign-associate rates by email.
Where one filing reaches, and where it does not
A trademark is a national right. There is no single registration that covers the world, but there is a single application that can designate a great deal of it: the Madrid Protocol now has 117 contracting parties covering 133 countries. Filled territories can be reached that way. The rest mean engaging counsel locally.
- Reachable by one Madrid application
- File nationally — local counsel required
- Not researched — dependency or contested territory
The map shows a route, not the strength of a right. Every designated office still examines the mark under its own law and can refuse it. One trap is worth naming: for the first five years an international registration depends on the home application, so if the base falls, every designation falls with it.
The registers
- United StatesUSPTO — Trademark Search
The federal register. Rights arise from use in commerce; registration is what makes them enforceable nationwide.
- European UnionEUIPO — eSearch plus
One filing covers all 27 member states. Runs in parallel with the national registers, which remain available.
- United KingdomUK Intellectual Property Office
Separate from the EUIPO since Brexit; existing EUTMs were cloned onto the UK register.
- CanadaCanadian Intellectual Property Office
Joined the Madrid Protocol in 2019; use is no longer required to register.
- AustraliaIP Australia
Madrid member; opposition period runs two months from advertisement.
- JapanJapan Patent Office — J-PlatPat
Madrid member; first-to-file, with no use requirement at filing.
- Republic of KoreaKIPRIS
Madrid member; searchable Korean IP database.
- IndiaController General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks
Madrid member since 2013; the public search covers the Indian register.
- InternationalWIPO — Madrid Monitor
Tracks international registrations. The trap is central attack: for five years the international registration depends on the home application, and if the base falls every designation falls with it.
Search the registers yourself, free
Both federal registers are public and neither needs an account. The trademark register is searchable through USPTO Trademark Search, and registered copyrights through the Copyright Office’s public records system. Looking before you file costs nothing and sometimes answers the question on its own.
A search of the register is not clearance, though, and it is worth being plain about the difference. Typing a name in finds the marks that look like it to a search box. A refusal under 15 U.S.C. § 1052(d) turns on likelihood of confusion - related goods, overlapping channels, marks that sound alike or mean the same thing - and those are the ones a knockout search does not surface. What the fees below buy is that judgement, and the filing built around it.
Why there is no copyright map
Because there is nothing to draw. 17 U.S.C. § 301 preempts state rights equivalent to copyright, so a fifty-state copyright map would assert a variation the statute abolished. Registration is federal, at the Copyright Office, and the question that actually matters is timing rather than geography: statutory damages and attorney’s fees turn on having registered before the infringement, or within three months of first publication.
An absence drawn as a blank map reads as missing research. Stated plainly, it is a finding.
Trademark filing and copyright registration
One flat fee covers a direct filing: search, application, and prosecution through registration. A mark that sits close to existing marks benefits from a comprehensive clearance search and written opinion first, available as an add-on before filing begins.
What's included
- Attorney consultation and filing-strategy review
- Applicant ownership, domicile, entity-type, and filing-basis review
- Preliminary direct-hit USPTO search
- Identification and classification of goods and services
- Application preparation and electronic filing
- Docketing and notice of material USPTO deadlines
- Copyright application, deposit preparation, and filing for a single work
How it works
- 01Tell me about your matterA short questionnaire, scoped to what's reasonably necessary to evaluate the matter - nothing more.
- 02Conflict check and scopingA conflict check runs before anything substantive is discussed, then the scope and fee structure are confirmed.
- 03Engagement letter, e-signedA clear, written agreement with every required disclosure, signed before work begins.
- 04Work beginsYou get a direct line to the attorney handling your matter - not a triage queue.
Important
Eric Adar Carver is admitted to practice law in California only. “From” fees reflect matters whose complexity cannot be fully determined until a search is run and the mark or work is reviewed; scope is confirmed before an engagement letter is signed.