Built for the way Chicago builds brands
Chicago is one of the most active brand cities in the country. The West Loop and Fulton Market keep launching new restaurant concepts. Wicker Park, Logan Square, and Pilsen are home to a deep bench of independent designers and studios. River North runs on agencies. Lincoln Park, Bucktown, and the Gold Coast are full of DTC and retail brands. The Loop and Fulton Market house the city’s law firms, agencies, and corporate brand teams. And the startup scene at 1871, mHUB, and TechNexus produces new product names almost every week.
Every one of those founders eventually faces the same federal hurdle. Your name, your logo, and your creative work need real protection, and the USPTO does not care which neighborhood you launched in. We help Chicago brand owners file trademarks, register copyrights, and build IP portfolios that hold up when the market gets crowded. Flat fees. Plain language. A process built for founders who do not have time for billable-hour roulette.
Why Chicago brands call us
Chicago has plenty of large IP firms downtown. Most of them are excellent. Most of them also bill hourly, charge for every email, and spend more time on patent litigation than on the kind of practical, founder-friendly trademark work a growing brand actually needs.
We are different by design. Single point of contact means you talk to the attorney working on your file, not a paralegal four steps removed. Flat-fee pricing means you know the total cost before you sign. ID Manual first means we use pre-approved USPTO descriptions to keep your government fees at the lowest tier. And fully remote means a Lincoln Square founder, a Naperville e-commerce owner, and a downtown agency all get the same treatment, on the same timeline, without a single in-person meeting.
Who we help in Chicago
We work with brand owners across the city’s most active categories. Below are the most common engagements. If your situation is not listed, it is probably still a fit. See all who we help.
Scaling Brands
Chicago brands hitting growth where the gaps in their IP show up. Multi-class filings, monitoring, and international expansion strategy.
Startups
1871, mHUB, and TechNexus founders locking down product names and logos before fundraising or launch. Intent-to-Use filings welcome.
Small Businesses
Restaurants, retail, fitness studios, and service businesses across Chicagoland protecting concept names, taglines, and signature offerings.
Artists & Designers
Independent artists and design studios in Wicker Park, Logan Square, and Pilsen registering copyrights and protecting visual marks.
Authors & Writers
Books, podcasts, courses, and serialized written work. Copyright registration plus series-name and pen-name trademark protection.
Developers & Software Creators
Indie developers and small software shops protecting product names, logos, app icons, and source code as creative works.
Services for Chicago clients
Most Chicago engagements start with one of the four services below. We scope and price every service up front, before any work starts. See all trademark services or see all copyright services.
The process
Our part of the process takes about 7 to 10 days from intake to USPTO submission. From there, the USPTO controls the timeline. As of 2026, expect 8 to 14 months from filing to a registration certificate, assuming no substantive issues.
Strategy call
A 30-minute call to understand your brand, your goods and services, and your timeline. We confirm scope and flat-fee pricing before any work starts.
Clearance search
A Go/No-Go search across federal, state, and common-law sources. You receive a written report explaining risk level and recommended next steps.
Class and description selection
We map your business to the right USPTO classes using ID Manual descriptions. The lowest-fee, lowest-friction path through the application. Read more in our breakdown of why the ID Manual matters.
Application drafted and filed
We draft your application, walk you through it for sign-off, and submit it directly to the USPTO. You receive your serial number the same day.
Examination and publication
8 to 10 months later, your application is reviewed by a USPTO examiner. If approved, it is published in the Official Gazette for a 30-day opposition period.
Registration
If no one opposes, the USPTO issues your registration certificate. Your trademark is enforceable nationwide for 10 years, renewable for as long as you use it in commerce.
Flat-fee pricing
Trademark filing should not be a surprise bill. Below is the most common engagement, a single-class federal trademark application. Multi-class filings, copyright registrations, and complex matters are quoted up front before any work begins.
Note: USPTO government filing fees ($350 per class as of 2026) are billed separately and paid directly to the USPTO at the time of filing. Custom descriptions outside the ID Manual incur a $200 per class USPTO surcharge. We use ID Manual descriptions wherever possible to keep your fees at the lowest tier.
Chicago FAQs
The questions we hear most from Chicago founders before they engage. Do not see yours? Send it over. We will answer it on the consultation call.
No. Trademarks and copyrights are governed by federal law. The USPTO and the U.S. Copyright Office have nationwide jurisdiction, and any U.S.-licensed attorney can represent you on a federal filing regardless of which state either of you is in. We work with Chicago clients entirely remotely. Video consultations, electronic signatures, and email-based status updates.
I represent clients nationwide for Federal (USPTO) trademark matters. Federal law allows any U.S. attorney in good standing to practice before the USPTO, which is why we work with Chicago clients every week.
However, state-level trademark applications are governed by individual state laws. I am licensed to practice law in the State of Minnesota, so I cannot directly file an Illinois state trademark application. For most Chicago businesses this is not a concern, since federal registration provides nationwide protection that is significantly broader than any state filing. If your situation specifically requires an Illinois state registration, I can help you evaluate whether federal is the better path or refer you to local Illinois counsel.
Not at all. Whether you are in Naperville, Evanston, Oak Park, Wheaton, Schaumburg, Aurora, or downtown, the federal trademark process is identical. We work with founders and businesses across the entire Chicagoland metro the same way. Remote consultations, electronic filings, and a single point of contact.
Yes, and you probably should. A Section 1(b) Intent-to-Use application lets you reserve your trademark with the USPTO before you have a single sale. You lock in a priority date today, which means anyone who tries to use a similar name after that date is standing behind you in line. We file ITU applications regularly for Chicago founders who are still in product development or pre-launch. Read more in our guide to ITU applications.
Our part, from intake to USPTO submission, takes about 7 to 10 days. After that, the USPTO controls the timeline. As of 2026, expect 8 to 10 months to first examination, another month or two for publication and opposition, and then registration. Total: typically 10 to 14 months from filing to a registration certificate, assuming no substantive issues.
Most rejections are procedural office actions: minor issues with descriptions, specimens, or formatting. Those are handled as part of your flat fee. Substantive refusals (likelihood of confusion with a prior mark, descriptiveness refusals, and similar) are more involved and require a separate scoped engagement. We quote those up front before any additional work begins. The clearance search we do at the start is specifically designed to identify substantive risk before you ever file, which is why most of our applications never see one. If you do get one, see our office action response service.
Yes. We help Chicago brand owners respond to infringement on three fronts: trademark side, with cease and desist letters and ongoing monitoring; copyright side, with DMCA takedowns and infringement response; and pre-emptive, by filing the right marks in the right classes before the copying starts. The fastest action we can take depends on what you have already registered, so the consultation call usually starts there.