Do I need a lawyer to trademark a name?

You can file a U.S. trademark application yourself: the USPTO's system is open to the public, and plenty of people self-file. Whether you should is a judgment that depends on how much the name is worth to you and how complicated your situation is. This guide lays out the tradeoffs; it's general information, not legal advice for your specific case.

• Preliminary screening. Anyone can screen a name for obvious conflicts before investing in it. That means checking whether it's the same as, or confusingly similar to, existing marks. This is the cheap first pass, and a tool that matches by sound and meaning does most of the heavy lifting.

• Basic research. Reading the live/dead status of nearby marks and understanding which classes your goods fall in is very doable on your own.

• A full clearance opinion. Attorneys search beyond the federal register (common-law use, state registrations, design marks) and give a reasoned read on likelihood of confusion that a screen can't.

• Close calls and refusals. If your screen surfaces a borderline conflict, or the USPTO issues a refusal (an "office action"), experienced judgment materially improves the outcome.

• Drafting the application right. The identification of goods, the class selection, and the specimen all have traps that are cheap to get right up front and expensive to fix later.

For most people the practical order is: screen the name yourself first to weed out the obvious problems, then bring an attorney in for the clearance opinion and filing if the name survives and matters. Screening early makes any later legal help cheaper and more focused, because you arrive with the obvious conflicts already ruled out.