How to trademark a game name: when to file, what it costs, and what it stops
You search your game's name to see how the launch is going, and there is a second game using it. Or you are a year from launch, the name finally feels right, and you want to know how to keep it.
A game we shipped was extracted, rebuilt and resold, so we read this law as the people it is meant to protect. Copyright covers a game's files. It does nothing for the name. This page is about the name: what a trademark is, how a small studio registers one in the United States, what it costs over ten years, and where it stops. It is not legal advice, and the points where a lawyer is worth paying are marked.
The short answer
- The name is a trademark matter. Copyright does not cover names or titles, however original.
- In the United States you get some rights by selling the game under the name. Registration is what makes those rights nationwide, public and easy to prove.
- You can file before the game exists. An intent-to-use application holds your place from the day you file, for as long as three years after it is allowed.
- Search before you fall in love with the name. The test is confusion with marks on related products, and a one-word mark inside your longer title counts.
- Most games need one class, some need two. Class 9 covers a downloadable game. Class 41 covers a game provided online as a service.
- The government fee is $350 a class to file. By our sum, one class costs $1,325 in fees over the first ten years, or $1,475 if you file before launch.
- A registration stops confusing use of the name. It does not stop a game that copies your design under a different name.
1. Why copyright does not cover the name
Copyright protects the game: code, art, music, writing. It does not protect what the game is called. The Copyright Office does not register names, titles or short phrases. Our copyright registration guide covers what that office does protect.
A trademark is a different kind of right. It is not about who created something. It is about who a buyer thinks they are buying from. The USPTO puts the limit plainly: owning a trademark does not give you rights to the word or phrase in general, only to how it is used with your goods or services. Two things follow. Nobody owns a common word outright, including you. And the question in every trademark dispute is whether players would be confused about the source, which is a narrower question than whether someone copied you.
2. What you have without registering
In the United States, rights start with use. The USPTO says you become a trademark owner as soon as you start using your trademark with your goods or services. It adds that those rights are limited, and apply only to the geographic area where you are providing them.
Federal law also gives a claim to the owner of an unregistered mark against a false designation of origin that is likely to cause confusion. So a studio with a released game and no registration is not without a case.
What it is without is proof on paper. Every part of the claim has to be shown from scratch: that the name works as a brand, that you used it first, where, and how widely. A store's complaint desk is not set up to weigh that. A registration replaces the argument with a number.
You can put ™ after the name at any time, registered or not. It says you claim the name. The ® symbol is only for a mark the USPTO has registered, and only for the goods or services in the registration.
3. What registration changes
| What you get | What it means for a game | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Evidence of ownership | The certificate is prima facie evidence that the mark is valid, that you own it, and that you have the exclusive right to use it for the listed goods or services. The other side has to disprove it. | 15 U.S.C. § 1057(b) |
| A nationwide priority date | Once the mark registers, the day you filed counts as the day you first used it, across the whole country. It does not beat someone who used the name or filed before you. | 15 U.S.C. § 1057(c) |
| Public notice | Registration is constructive notice of your claim. A later user cannot say they had no way to know. | 15 U.S.C. § 1072 |
| The ® symbol | If you do not display it, you cannot recover profits or damages in an infringement suit unless the defendant had actual notice of the registration. Use it on the store page, the title screen and the trailer. | 15 U.S.C. § 1111 |
| A record others will find | Examining attorneys search the federal register and can refuse a later application that is confusingly similar to yours. Other studios doing their own search will see your name too. | USPTO |
| A stronger position after five years | After five consecutive years of use following registration, and a filing that says so, the right to use the mark becomes incontestable, which closes off most challenges to it. | 15 U.S.C. § 1065 |
The second row is the one that matters most to a studio that has not shipped yet. It is the reason to file early, and section 5 comes back to it.
4. Search before you commit to the name
The most common reason the USPTO refuses an application is likelihood of confusion with a mark already registered or applied for. Two things have to be true together: the marks are similar, and the goods or services are related.
- Similar does not mean identical. The USPTO compares sound, appearance, meaning and overall commercial impression. A respelling that sounds the same is its own example of a confusingly similar mark.
- Related means players could assume one source. Another video game is the plainest case. The USPTO also notes that identical marks with different owners can both be registered when the goods are unrelated, and gives Dove soap and Dove ice cream as its example.
A search worth trusting covers more than an exact match:
- The USPTO trademark search, for live registrations and pending applications. Search the exact name, then each distinctive word in it alone, then spellings that sound the same.
- The stores you plan to release on: Steam, itch.io, the console stores, the App Store and Google Play. An unregistered game that has been on sale for years has rights from use, and it will not appear in the USPTO search.
- TMview and WIPO's Global Brand Database, if you will sell outside the United States. Most games do from the first day.
- A plain web search, plus domain names and social handles.
The case to learn from is a word inside a longer title. A three-person studio, No Matter Studios, applied to register Prey for the Gods, a game it had funded on Kickstarter. ZeniMax, the owner of the Prey mark, opposed the application. In May 2017 the studio renamed the game Praey for the Gods. In its statement, as reported at the time, it said it had thought about fighting for a long while and decided against spending backers' money on a legal dispute, which it called something no starting company should face, "let alone a tiny team of three." PC Gamer reported a Bethesda executive saying the company had first contacted the studio in November 2015.
We take two things from that. A short registered mark owned by a large company is the search result to worry about most, even when your title is four words long. And a dispute that arrives after you have an audience under the name costs far more than one that arrives before. Searching is free. A search by a trademark lawyer costs money and looks in more places, and in our view it is worth pricing before the name goes on a trailer.
A note on names that are hard to register
The USPTO ranks marks by strength. Invented words and real words with no connection to the product are strong. Words that only suggest a quality are still acceptable. Words that merely describe the product are weak, and register only in limited cases such as long and extensive use. Generic terms cannot be registered at all.
For games this means a name that describes the genre or the activity is the hardest to protect. A title built from the plain words for what the player does may be easy to find in a store search and nearly impossible to stop others from using. A name that says nothing literal about the game is easier to own.
One rule works in a game's favour. The title of a single book or a single film cannot be registered as a trademark, because the USPTO treats it as naming one work, not a source. Its examining manual lists the exceptions, and says that computer software and computer games are not treated as single creative works. (The link is to a mirror of section 1202.08(b) from the October 2017 edition of the manual, which is the copy we could read.) So a game does not need a sequel before its title can be registered.
5. When to file: before launch, if you can
There are two ways in for a studio based in the United States.
| Basis | Who it is for | What it needs |
|---|---|---|
| Use in commerce, section 1(a) | The game is already on sale or publicly distributed under the name. | A specimen showing the name in real use, filed with the application. |
| Intent to use, section 1(b) | The game is announced or in development and not yet released. | A bona fide intention to use the name, stated under oath. Proof of use comes later, with a second fee. |
The intent-to-use route exists for exactly the position most studios are in. You file while the game is in development. If the application is approved and nobody opposes it, the USPTO issues a notice of allowance. From that date the statute gives six months to file a statement of use, extendable in six-month steps to 36 months in total. The mark registers once you show real use.
The reason to do this is the priority date. When the mark registers, your filing date is treated as your first use, nationwide. Without a filing, your priority starts on the day the game goes on sale. Every month between announcing the name and selling the game is a month in which someone else can file or start using it first.
Our view, as developers and not as lawyers: the best time to file is when the name is settled and before the public announcement. A trailer tells everyone what your game is called. It gives you no rights in the name.
What counts as use, when the time comes? The statute defines it as bona fide use in the ordinary course of trade, and not use made merely to reserve a right in a mark. For goods, the mark has to be on the goods or their displays, and the goods have to be sold or transported in commerce. For a downloadable game the USPTO's specimen guidance gives two examples it accepts: a launch screen showing the mark, or a web page showing the mark with enough information to download the software. It refuses a page with no means to download or purchase, and it refuses mockups and digitally altered images. A store page for a game that cannot yet be bought or downloaded is not a specimen for the game itself.
6. Which classes a game needs
An application lists the goods and services the mark is used for, sorted into numbered classes. The fee is charged per class, and the registration only covers what is listed. The wording below is from the USPTO's Trademark ID Manual, which we searched on 10 October 2026.
| Class | ID Manual wording | When it fits |
|---|---|---|
| 9 | "Downloadable video game software", "Downloadable computer game software", "Recorded video game software" | A game sold as a download or on physical media. This is the core class for a paid PC or console game. |
| 41 | "Entertainment services, namely, providing online video games" | A game the player reaches online without holding a copy: browser games, streamed games, and games run as a continuing online service. |
| 42 | "Providing online non-downloadable game software" | The same kind of online offering, described as software. Offices outside the United States may classify it differently. |
| Others | Clothing, toys, printed books and soundtracks each have their own class. | Only when you sell those things, or truly intend to. |
Two practical points.
Pick wording from the manual. Since January 2025 the USPTO charges $200 a class for typing your own description into the free-form box in place of choosing a manual entry, and $100 a class for an application missing required information. The manual's entries for games are broad enough for nearly every case.
List only what is true. Every item is sworn to. Listing merchandise you have no plan to make adds a fee and adds a weakness, because a registration can be challenged for goods the owner never used the mark on. A single-player game sold as a download is, in our reading, a one-class filing in Class 9. An online game that is also sold as a download is where the second class starts to earn its fee. This is a good question for the lawyer, if you use one.
Name or logo? You can register the words, the logo, or both as separate applications. If the budget covers one, our choice is the words. The name is what a player types into a store search, and it is what a copy is most likely to borrow.
7. What it costs over ten years
These are the fees on the USPTO fee schedule in effect since 19 January 2025, read on 10 October 2026. All are per class, for electronic filing.
| Fee | Amount | When it is paid |
|---|---|---|
| Base application | $350 | At filing |
| Statement of use | $150 | Intent-to-use applications only, once the game is out |
| Six-month extension to file the statement of use | $125 each | Only if the game is not out six months after the notice of allowance |
| Three-month extension to answer an office action | $125 | Only if you need more than the first three months |
| Declaration of use, section 8 | $325 | Between the fifth and sixth year after registration |
| Declaration of use and renewal, sections 8 and 9 | $650 | Between the ninth and tenth year, then every ten years |
Added up, by our own arithmetic:
| Path | To registration | Through the year-ten renewal |
|---|---|---|
| One class, filed after launch | $350 | $1,325 |
| One class, filed before launch | $500 | $1,475 |
| One class, filed before launch, game ships two years after allowance | $875 (three extensions) | $1,850 |
| Two classes, filed before launch | $1,000 | $2,950 |
Those are government fees only. A lawyer's fee is separate and varies. Ask for a fixed price that says whether the search, the filing and replies to the examiner are included.
The maintenance filings are easy to miss, because the first is due five years after anyone last thought about it. There is a six-month grace period with an extra fee. After that the registration is cancelled. Put both dates in a calendar on the day the certificate arrives.
8. How long it takes
The USPTO publishes its current processing times. As of 1 October 2026 the average wait from filing to an examining attorney's first action was 4.3 months, and the average from filing to registration or abandonment was 10.4 months.
- Filing. You get a serial number the same day. The priority date is now fixed.
- Examination. An examining attorney reviews the application. If there is a problem, they send an office action. You have three months to respond, with one optional three-month extension. No response means the application is abandoned and the fee is not returned.
- Publication. An approved mark is published, and anyone who believes they would be damaged by the registration has thirty days to oppose or ask for more time. This is the stage at which Prey for the Gods was opposed.
- Registration or allowance. A use-based application registers. An intent-to-use application receives a notice of allowance and waits for your statement of use.
The wait matters less than it looks, because the protection that counts dates from the filing and not from the certificate. What the wait does delay is the ® symbol and the registration number. For a game that is not out yet, both will usually arrive after launch, because an intent-to-use application cannot register until use is shown. Use ™ until then.
An office action is where a lawyer is most useful. A refusal for likelihood of confusion or descriptiveness is a legal argument with a deadline, and the answer goes on the public record.
9. Filing yourself, and two things that surprise people
A studio based in the United States may file without a lawyer. The USPTO says so, and in the same place recommends considering one. A studio based anywhere else has no choice: a foreign-domiciled applicant must be represented by a U.S.-licensed attorney.
Your details become public. Application records are open to anyone. The USPTO's page on personal information explains that the owner's name, mailing address and email address appear in the public record. The home address stays hidden only if you enter a different mailing address and do not repeat the home address anywhere else in the form. It suggests creating a separate email address for the application. A phone number is optional. If you work from home, set up the mailing address before you file. If a company owns the game, the company is the applicant.
The letters start soon after. Because the record is public, applicants receive official-looking invoices and emails asking for payment. The USPTO warns about them: its own email comes from addresses ending in @uspto.gov, it does not ask for payment by phone, text or wire, and every genuine notice appears under the documents tab of your application's record. If a demand is not in that record, it is not from the USPTO.
10. Using it when someone borrows the name
Save the evidence first, the same way you would for a copied build: dated screenshots of the listing, the URL, the seller's name, and any message from a confused player. Confused players are the best evidence a trademark owner can have.
Then use the store's own route. They are not the same as the copyright routes.
- Google Play. The Intellectual Property policy asks trademark owners to contact the developer first and then use Google's trademark form. The separate Impersonation policy covers titles and icons close enough to mislead.
- Apple App Store. The App Store dispute forms cover content disputes and app name disputes. Apple says that in most cases it contacts the other app's provider and asks the two sides to resolve it directly.
- itch.io. Its terms bar content that violates trademark rights. Write to its support address with the listing, your registration number and your evidence.
- Steam. Valve's public notice form is for copyright. We did not find a public form for trademark complaints. Ask Steam Support which route it wants before you send anything, and do not put a trademark complaint into a copyright form, which is sworn and is about a different right.
Put the registration number, the classes and the registration date at the top of whatever you send. If the copy also uses your files, art or capsule image, that part is a copyright matter, and our takedown guide covers it. Many resold copies involve both.
A letter to the other developer is sometimes the quickest fix, especially when the overlap looks like an accident. Keep it short and factual, and do not threaten what you are not ready to do. If the other side has money, a lawyer, or a registration of its own, speak to a lawyer before you write.
11. What a registration does not stop
- A clone under a different name. Trademark protects the name and logo. A game that copies your mechanics and feel under its own title is a separate problem, covered in our guide to clones.
- The same word on unrelated products. The right is tied to the goods and services you listed and to what is related to them.
- Someone who used the name first. The priority a registration gives does not reach back past an earlier user or an earlier filer.
- Use outside the United States. A U.S. registration covers the United States. Section 12 covers the rest.
- People talking about your game. Reviews, guides, videos and wikis that name the game to refer to it are not what trademark law is aimed at.
- A false copyright claim against you. That runs on a different process, set out in our guide to false takedowns.
It also cuts the other way. If you use a name that is confusingly close to an older game's mark, your own registration attempt is where you may find out, publicly and after the announcement. That is the strongest argument for section 4.
12. Outside the United States
Trademark rights are national. A game on a worldwide store is sold in many countries on day one, and a U.S. registration covers one of them. There are three tools.
- The six-month priority window. Under the Paris Convention, an application filed in another member country within six months of your first filing is treated as if it had been filed on the same day. You do not have to file everywhere at once. You do have to decide within six months.
- The Madrid System. WIPO's international route lets you file one application, in one language, with one set of fees in Swiss francs, naming the member countries you choose. It rests on a "basic mark", which is the application or registration in your home office. Each country you name still examines the mark under its own law.
- Direct filing. The European Union's office charges €850 online for one class, €50 for a second and €150 for each class after that, for a mark covering all member states for ten years. The United Kingdom's online application fee is £205.
Which countries are worth the fee depends on where your players are and where copies of games like yours tend to be sold. That is a budget decision, and a trademark lawyer who files internationally can price the options in one conversation. The search in section 4 should already have covered the registers you care about.
Common questions
Can you copyright a game name?
No. The Copyright Office does not register names, titles or short phrases. A game's name is protected, if at all, as a trademark.
Do I need to trademark my game's name before release?
It is not required, and in the United States you gain some rights simply by selling the game under the name. Filing before release fixes an earlier, nationwide priority date and tells you about conflicts while the name can still be changed cheaply.
How much does it cost to trademark a game name?
The USPTO's base fee is $350 per class. An application filed before the game is out costs $150 more per class when you later prove use. By our sum, one class costs $1,325 in government fees through the first ten-year renewal if filed after launch, and $1,475 if filed before. Lawyer's fees are extra.
How long does it take?
As of 1 October 2026 the USPTO reported an average of 4.3 months to a first action and 10.4 months from filing to registration or abandonment. An intent-to-use application registers only after the game is out and you have filed a statement of use.
Can I trademark a name before the game is finished?
Yes. An intent-to-use application needs a good-faith intention to use the name, not a finished game. After the notice of allowance you have six months to show use, extendable to 36 months in total.
Should I register the studio name or the game name?
They are separate marks and separate applications. The studio name protects everything you publish under it and does not protect any single title. If the budget covers one, our view is to register whichever name players actually search for, which for most small studios is the game.
Someone released a game with the same name as mine. What can I do?
Work out who used the name first and whether either of you has filed. If you were first, save the evidence, check the register, and use the store's trademark or impersonation route. If they were first, or have a registration, talk to a lawyer before you do anything public, because the claim may run against you.
I am not in the United States. Can I register there?
Yes, through a U.S.-licensed attorney, which the USPTO requires for foreign-domiciled applicants. You can file directly or name the United States in a Madrid application based on your home filing.
Does a trademark stop people selling a copy of my game?
It stops them selling it under your name or a confusingly similar one. If they rename it, the name claim is gone and the copied files are a copyright matter. Sellers of copied games often keep the name because the name is what sells, which is why both rights are worth having.
This page describes United States trademark law and the USPTO's published fees, guidance and processing times as of 10 October 2026, with European Union and United Kingdom fees read the same day. Fees and forms change, and the linked pages are the authority. The cost totals, the class suggestions and the views on timing are our own analysis. It is general information, not legal advice about your situation.