Built for the way New York builds brands
New York is the brand capital of the country. SoHo and NoHo are the launching pad for emerging fashion and beauty labels. Tribeca and the Flatiron district anchor the media and creative agency scene. The Garment District still runs the apparel supply chain. Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Bushwick are home to a deep bench of independent designers, studios, and DTC brands. Midtown and FiDi house the agency holding companies, finance, and corporate brand teams. And the city’s F&B world keeps producing new restaurant concepts faster than the USPTO can examine them.
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 borough or block you launched on. We help New York 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 New York brands call us
New York has more IP firms per square mile than any other city in the country. Most of them are excellent. Most of them also bill hourly, charge for every email, and spend more time on Fortune 500 portfolios 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 SoHo founder, a Brooklyn studio, and a Hudson Yards startup all get the same treatment, on the same timeline, without ever booking a conference room.
Who we help in New York
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
NYC fashion, beauty, and lifestyle brands hitting growth where the gaps in their IP show up. Multi-class filings, monitoring, and international expansion strategy.
Startups
Flatiron, Hudson Yards, and Brooklyn Navy Yard founders locking down product names and logos before fundraising or launch. Intent-to-Use filings welcome.
Fintech Startups
FiDi and Midtown fintech founders protecting product names, logos, and trade dress in one of the most aggressively-filed categories in the USPTO.
Small Businesses
Restaurants, boutique fitness, retail, and service businesses across all five boroughs protecting concept names, taglines, and signature offerings.
Artists & Designers
Independent artists and design studios in Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Long Island City registering copyrights and protecting visual marks.
Authors & Writers
Books, podcasts, newsletters, and serialized written work. Copyright registration plus series-name and pen-name trademark protection.
Services for New York clients
Most New York engagements start with one of the five services below. Fashion and beauty brands tend to start with clearance and multi-class filings. Media and publishing tends to start with copyright work. 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 (common for fashion and beauty brands), 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.
New York FAQs
The questions we hear most from New York 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 New York 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 New York 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 a New York state trademark application. For most New York 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 a New York state registration, I can help you evaluate whether federal is the better path or refer you to local New York counsel.
Not at all. Whether you are in Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick, Long Island City, Astoria, Park Slope, or Manhattan, the federal trademark process is identical. We work with founders and businesses across all five boroughs the same way. We also work with clients in Westchester, the Hudson Valley, and across Long Island. Remote consultations, electronic filings, and a single point of contact.
Yes, and you probably should, especially in New York where competition for brand names is fierce. 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 New York founders who are still in development, sampling, or pre-launch. Read more in our guide to ITU applications.
Probably yes. Fashion brands typically need protection in Class 25 (apparel), and often Class 18 (handbags and leather goods), Class 14 (jewelry), Class 35 (online retail), and sometimes Class 3 (beauty). We map your actual revenue streams and your near-term roadmap, then file in the classes that match. Filing in the wrong classes leaves you exposed; filing in too many wastes money on classes you cannot defend. The ID Manual strategy on the consultation call is where we sort this out.
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.
Yes. We help New York 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 depends on what you have already registered, so the consultation call usually starts there.