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What are classes used for?

The international classes are used for registering trademarks as determined by the Nice Classification. They constitute an administrative system that allows goods or services to be grouped into sets (classes) which are more or less similar.

Some examples?

Imagine that your company produces potato chips, sandals, shirts, and owns a restaurant and you want to register your trademark “XYZ” to identify these goods/services.

In that case, your trademark “XYZ” will be registered in the following international classes:

Class 29 - french fries.

Class 25 - sandals; shirts.

Class 43 - services for providing food and drink.

What are these classes used for?

The international classes for registration of trademarks are useful to the administrative institutions that deal with trademark proceedings, because trademarks are put together into groups of goods or services with some sort of affinity.

The identification of these classes is essential when applying to register a trademark, as it is required by the PTOs (Patent and Trademark Offices) responsible for trademark registration.

What is the Nice Classification?

Several PTOs worldwide have adopted the Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks. The agreement established a Nice system with 45 classes, which group sets of goods and services together.

Of the 45 existing classes, classes 1 to 34 correspond to goods; classes 35 to 45 correspond to services.

Thus, an entity that requires a trademark will necessarily have to indicate the classes corresponding to the goods and/or services it wishes to protect.

You can consult the complete Nice Classification list here.

Why is the Nice Classification important?

Considering that approximately 150 PTOs around the world apply the Nice Classification, determining the classes at an early stage becomes a critical step in order to proceed with the trademark application.

The Nice classes influence the costs of registering trademarks, since the official fees vary according to the number of classes. Our consulting service will, in that sense, be useful for the proper identification of relevant classes and of the costs expected when registering a trademark.

In addition, since this classification is used by many countries around the world, something which not only facilitates the internationalization of your trademark, but also reduces any translation costs related to your protected goods and/or services.

What is the difference between mono-class and multi-class systems?

Some countries provide in their legislation that each international class of goods or services corresponds to one trademark. This makes it necessary to submit a different trademark application for each international class identified. These jurisdictions are therefore known as mono-class systems.

Other jurisdictions state that a trademark may be registered in more than one class through a single application, thus forming a multi-class system.