Finally I have a registered trademark for the Graf Photography logo. My official registration number is 2959527. Filing for a trademark was an interesting process. Despite the lengthy time period it takes to go through the government lawyers and paperwork processing, it is fairly easy to do on your own. You can do it completely online, and even respond to inquiries and post electronic evidence documents. In fact, the only time I had to interact with an actual person was when I needed them to re-send an inquiry email to me that I lost.

The rest seems to be fairly automated. The US Patent & Trademark website allows you to follow the status and progress of your mark, which lawyer’s office it is assigned to, and eventually when it is registered.

The whole process took approximately a year and a half. I could have shaved about 6 months off of that if I hadn’t procrastinated in responding to one of their ‘office actions.’