[meretext]

A friend of mine applied for a (tm) a few months ago. US PTO contacted him by email once suggesting he not use a color for the logo he wanted (tm) protection on, and that by leaving logo black, he could then use any color in the future without having to (tm) each color. No lawyer needed, he has his (tm) so no, a lawyer of any stripe is not required for (tm) application. I'd read very carefully what US PTO sent you -- NOLO's Trademark: Legal Care for Your Business & Product Name book is a great resource for doing it yourself. Again, no, you are not required to use a lawyer of any stripe to submit a trademark application and have it issued after US PTO does the search. Make sure you're going straight to US PTO and not using a third party to do the work.

[vlangber]

A recent change now require foreign applicants to have a US attorney: https://www.uspto.gov/trademark/laws-regulations/trademark-r... According to one of the spam emails we have received, the new rules went into effect Aug. 3rd 2019.