For Sarasota County businesses with a name worth protecting.
Restaurants, salons and med spas, studios, boutiques, contractors and professional firms with a name customers know. One Florida attorney, one flat fee, from the search to the registration certificate.
I’m a Florida attorney based in St. Pete, just up the road, working with Sarasota businesses by email and phone. Trademarks are federal, so where you are doesn’t change the work.
Each one makes a rename harder.
More people, more businesses and millions of visitors who take your name home with them.
Sarasota County welcomed 2,710,700 visitors in fiscal 2025, who spent about $2.37 billion. Tourism’s total economic impact was about $3.6 billion, supporting 28,560 jobs. A customer from Ohio who loved your shop in February is a customer who shops your site in July.
Sarasota County grew from 434,008 people in 2020 to an estimated 479,958 in 2025, up 10.6%. It had 15,989 employer businesses and 53,249 more run without employees in 2023. Every one of them needed a name.
Lakewood Ranch was the top-selling multigenerational community in the country at mid-year 2026, with 1,035 home sales, and Wellen Park in Venice had 727. New neighborhoods fill up with studios, clinics, cafes and service businesses, many opening at the same time.
Each one turned on a name somebody assumed was free to use.
The developer, Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, holds a federal registration for LAKEWOOD RANCH and enforces it. In 2018 it sued over a planned "Lakewood Ranch Hotel" outside the development, and the case settled with the name dropped. In 2024 it filed a federal trademark suit in Tampa against a condominium association and others using the name.
A Sarasota distillery registered SIESTA KEY for spirits in 2011. In 2025 a company in Ohio registered SIESTA KEY for perfume and cologne. A local place name can be owned by different businesses in different categories, including ones that have never been here.
A Sarasota Realtor registered TheSarasotaMLS.com in 2003. In 2008 the Sarasota Association of Realtors, which used SARASOTA MLS as a mark, won a 2-1 arbitration decision ordering the domain transferred, and he sued in federal court to keep it. Owning the web address didn’t make the name his.
Florida keeps three separate records, and none of them is a federal trademark.
Filing with the Florida Division of Corporations creates the company. It doesn’t check whether anyone else already uses the name as a brand.
Registering a d/b/a lets you do business under another name in Florida. It gives you no exclusive right to that name.
Florida registers marks at the state level, and that protection stops at the state line. A federal registration covers all fifty states from one filing.
Free and low-cost help for the parts of your business that aren’t trademarks.
No-cost, face-to-face business consulting for Sarasota and Manatee businesses.
Free, confidential mentoring and workshops for Manatee and Sarasota County businesses.
More than a century old, with networking, advocacy and programs for local businesses.
Economic development for the county, with tools and resources for businesses starting, growing or moving here.
Business resources and networking for south county businesses.
The Florida Division of Corporations is where your LLC and fictitious name live. Keep the annual report current so the company stays active.
One mark is $2,600 flat, plus the $350 USPTO fee per class. Pay once, or in two or three payments. Questions by email are free.
Most Sarasota businesses own more than one mark: the name, the logo, a product line, a location brand. The fee is set by how many marks you protect now. See everything the fee covers.
Your business name, or the one product everyone knows you for.
Or three payments of $950. Plus the $350 USPTO fee per class.
Name plus logo, or name plus tagline.
Or three payments of $1,735. Plus the $350 USPTO fee per class.
A brand with a few core offers, each with a name of its own.
Or three payments of $2,520. Plus the $350 USPTO fee per class.
A suite of products, programs or locations, protected together.
Or three payments of $3,285. Plus the $350 USPTO fee per class.
The whole brand, filed at once.
Or three payments of $4,050. Plus the $350 USPTO fee per class.
Every application Citrus Legal has filed has been approved. Zero refusals so far.
If my written opinion rates your mark low risk and the examiner refuses it anyway, I prepare and file a new application for a new mark at no attorney fee. You pay only the USPTO filing fee.
If the first search comes back high risk, I search one new name at no charge, so you are never stuck paying to find out a name was never available.
Every mark is one flat fee, agreed in writing before any work starts. Procedural Office Actions are included. Nothing arrives as a surprise invoice.
I am Gabrielle Maria Crawford, Esq., founder of Citrus Legal. I run your search myself, write the opinion myself, and handle your filing myself.
Admitted to The Florida Bar. Juris Doctor, University of Miami School of Law. Based in St. Pete. I work with businesses from Sarasota and Lakewood Ranch to Siesta Key, Venice and North Port. Trademarks nationwide under federal law; business contracts in Florida.
Learn more about GabrielleYou can include it, but a place name describes where you are, so it won’t be what protects you. The rest of the name has to do that work. And as Siesta Key shows, someone may already own the place name in your category. The search checks both.
Using it in your address is how many businesses there describe where they are. Putting it in the brand itself is a different question, because the developer holds a federal registration and has sued over it. Email me before you print anything with it.
Federal trademarks are handled through the USPTO, so you don’t need an attorney in your city. I’m a Florida attorney based in St. Pete and work with Sarasota businesses by email and phone.
$2,600 flat for one mark at Citrus Legal: the search, the written opinion, the application and procedural Office Actions through registration. Plus the USPTO’s $350 fee per class. Two marks are $4,950 and three are $7,300.
An LLC registers your company with the State of Florida. It doesn’t give you rights in the name as a brand. A federal trademark registration does, nationwide.
Questions by email are always free. If you want to talk through your situation live, you can book a paid 30-minute consultation.
Start here, or email us first. Either one gets you a straight answer about what to do next.
Email questions are free. Want to talk it through? Book a paid 30-minute consultation. (opens in a new tab)