To get a trademark in Texas, file Form 901 with the Texas Secretary of State through the online trademark portal, submit a specimen proving the mark is already in use in Texas commerce, and pay a $50 fee for each class of goods or services covered. A clean application can be approved in a few weeks. Texas does not let you reserve a name you only plan to use later, so the mark has to be in actual use when you apply.
Make Sure Your Mark Can Be Registered
Texas requires your mark to be distinctive, meaning it identifies your goods or services and sets them apart from everyone else’s. The Secretary of State’s office refuses marks that fall into several familiar categories.1Office of the Texas Secretary of State. Trademarks FAQs
- Marks that merely describe the product, its qualities, size, or ingredients. “Soft Towels” for a towel company tells shoppers what the thing is, not who makes it.
- Laudatory phrases like “Best Quality” or “Premium Grade,” which are treated the same way as descriptive marks.
- Marks that are primarily just a personal name, unless the name has acquired distinctiveness through long use in commerce.
- Geographic terms that describe where the product comes from, such as “Austin BBQ Sauce.”
- Marks confusingly similar to one already registered with the Texas Secretary of State or the USPTO.
The strongest marks are coined or fanciful words (Xerox, Kodak), followed by arbitrary marks (Apple for computers) and suggestive marks that hint at a quality without describing it outright. If part of your mark is descriptive but the overall mark is distinctive, the examiner may let you register it on the condition that you disclaim rights to the descriptive portion.2Justia Law. Texas Business and Commerce Code 16.055 – Disclaimer of Unregistrable Component
Search for Conflicts Before You File
Spend time on a conflict search before you spend money on an application. The Texas Secretary of State offers a trademark search through its SOSDirect system that covers existing state registrations.3Office of the Texas Secretary of State. Trademarks and Service Marks That is only part of the picture. Also search the USPTO’s Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS), because a Texas application will be rejected if it conflicts with a federally registered mark.
Then look beyond the databases. A business that has used a name in Texas for years may hold common law rights without any registration on file. A general web search, industry directories, and domain name lookups can turn up conflicts that government records will not. Professional clearance searches run $1,800 or more and can be worth it when the brand name is central to a significant investment.
Information and Documents You’ll Need
Texas uses Form 901 for both trademarks and service marks.4Texas Secretary of State. Form 901 – Application for Registration of a Trade or Service Mark The mark must already be in use in Texas commerce on the date you file. The application asks for:
- Your business structure: sole proprietor, LLC, corporation, or partnership.
- The full legal name and business address of the mark’s owner.
- A specific description of the goods or services sold under the mark, organized by international class.
- The date you first used the mark in Texas commerce.
- A specimen showing the mark as consumers actually see it.
The specimen trips up more applicants than anything else. It is not a clean studio image of your logo. It has to show the mark attached to the goods or services the way customers encounter it. For products, that means a photo of the mark on packaging, labels, or tags. For services, a screenshot of a website displaying the mark next to a description of the services usually works, as do photos of signage or printed ads. The examiner wants evidence that you are genuinely using the mark in the marketplace.
Filing With the Secretary of State
Texas directs applicants to file electronically through the Secretary of State’s online trademark portal. The portal uses its own separate login, not the SOSDirect account you may already have for other business filings.5Office of the Texas Secretary of State. Trademark Online System How-Tos You create an account, complete Form 901 inside the system, upload your specimen, and pay the fee. Form 901 itself tells applicants to submit online rather than by mail, so plan on the portal.4Texas Secretary of State. Form 901 – Application for Registration of a Trade or Service Mark
The filing fee is $50 per class of goods or services.6Office of the Texas Secretary of State. Business Filings and Trademarks Fee Schedule If your mark covers products in one class and services in another, you pay $50 for each. That is substantially cheaper than federal registration, which starts at $250 to $350 per class.
What Happens After You File
An examiner at the Secretary of State’s office reviews the application against the Texas Business and Commerce Code. They look at whether the mark is distinctive enough to register, whether the specimen adequately shows use in commerce, whether the application is complete, and whether the mark conflicts with existing registrations.7Legal Information Institute. Texas Administrative Code 93.85 – Third Party Communications
If something needs fixing, the examiner contacts you with a request to amend. Respond promptly. Ignoring the examiner’s concerns can get the application abandoned, which means starting over with a new filing and a new fee. When the application clears, the Secretary of State issues a Certificate of Registration.
Review is limited to the written record. The examiner will not go looking for unregistered marks that might conflict with yours, and third parties generally cannot oppose your application through the Secretary of State’s office. Adversarial objections to a Texas registration play out in court, not at the filing stage.
Keeping Your Registration Alive
A Texas trademark registration lasts five years. To keep it active, file a renewal during the last six months of that five-year term.1Office of the Texas Secretary of State. Trademarks FAQs The renewal fee is $25 per class.6Office of the Texas Secretary of State. Business Filings and Trademarks Fee Schedule If you miss the window, the Secretary of State cancels the registration.
Cancellation can also happen for other reasons. A court can order it if the mark has been abandoned, if the registration was obtained fraudulently, or if the mark has become a generic term (aspirin and escalator were once trademarks). Under Texas law, not using your mark for three consecutive years creates a presumption of abandonment.8State of Texas. Texas Business and Commerce Code Chapter 16 – Trademarks
One Important Limit: Texas Only
A Texas state trademark protects the mark only inside Texas. That works for a business whose customers are all in the state, like a restaurant chain in the Dallas–Fort Worth area or a landscaping company serving Houston suburbs. If you sell online, ship across state lines, or plan to expand beyond Texas, you want federal registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which covers the entire country and its territories.9United States Patent and Trademark Office. Why Register Your Trademark Nothing prevents you from holding both.