Wanting greater clarity and trying to appeal to wary potential clients, many trademark lawyers have adopted flat fees for trademark services.
If you search around for a few minutes, you will see things like this:
“$600+filing fee, filed by a lawyer”
“Attorney representation from start to finish. $575+government fees”
“Flat legal fee: $650 US Government Filing Fee: $325 per class Total: $975”
“$495 Comprehensive Trademark Search + FREE Trademark Application …”
“Get Your Trademark for Under $700”
So for this unscientific sample, the range seems to be around $500 to $600 in professional fees for filing an application to register a trademark in one international class. These examples are firms that advertise their rates on their web sites. Obviously, there are many other lawyers who offer flat fees but do not publish them.
Then there are the service providers that seem to be the true high-volume and low-touch model, with prices suggesting that the work is not necessarily touched by lawyers.
“Register a Trademark $99”
“$69 Register a Trademark”
a $169 “Basic” package” and a $189 “Complete Coverage” package
Should your firm establish, and then publish, flat fees for your trademark work?
We should all be smart enough to avoid a race to the bottom when it comes to fees (be careful, you might win!). But whether your law firm has an established flat fee schedule for all trademark applications or not, the growing number of published flat fees can set expectations among clients. Your smaller, newer, or more cost-sensitive potential clients in particular are likely to gauge your fees against those they find online.
Keeping an eye on the most visible flat fee providers seems like a good idea. If you don’t, chances are, some of your potential clients are going to let you know about it.