General Principles of Trademark Classification
Trademark classification is an essential aspect of the trademark registration process. It involves categorizing goods and services into specific classes according to a standardized classification system.
Nice Classification
The Nice Classification system is the internationally recognized system used for trademark classification. It is maintained by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Nice Classification categorizes goods and services into 45 classes. 34 classes for goods and 11 classes for services. Each class represents a distinct category of goods or services.
Trademarks are classified based on the actual or intended use of the goods or services they represent. Goods are classified according to their nature or purpose, while services are classified based on the activities they cover.
Trademark Classes
The indications of goods or services appearing in the class headings are general indications relating to the fields to which, in principle, the goods or services belong. The Alphabetical List should therefore be consulted in order to ascertain the exact classification of each individual product or service.
Criteria for Trademark Classification
GOODS
- A finished product is in principle classified according to its function or purpose. If the function or purpose of a finished product is not mentioned in any class heading, the finished product is classified by analogy with other comparable finished products, indicated in the Alphabetical List. If none is found, other subsidiary criteria, such as that of the material of which the product is made or its mode of operation, are applied.
- A finished product which is a multipurpose composite object (e.g., clocks incorporating radios) may be classified in all classes that correspond to any of its functions or intended purposes. However, if a good has a primary purpose it should be classified in this class. If those functions or purposes are not mentioned in any class heading, other criteria, indicated under (a), above, are to be applied.
- Raw materials, unworked or semi-worked, are in principle classified according to the material of which they consist.
- Goods intended to form part of another product are in principle classified in the same class as that product only in cases where the same type of goods cannot normally be used for another purpose. In all other cases, the criterion indicated under (a), above, applies.
- When a product, whether finished or not, is classified according to the material of which it is made, and it is made of different materials, the product is in principle classified according to the material which predominates.
- Cases adapted to the product they are intended to contain are in principle classified in the same class as the product.
SERVICES
- Services are in principle classified according to the branches of activities specified in the headings of the service classes and in their Explanatory Notes or, if not specified, by analogy with other comparable services indicated in the Alphabetical List.
- Rental services are in principle classified in the same classes as the services provided by means of the rented objects (e.g., Rental of telephones, covered by Cl.38). Leasing services are analogous to rental services and therefore should be classified in the same way. However, hire- or lease-purchase financing is classified in Cl. 36 as a financial service.
- Services that provide advice, information or consultation are in principle classified in the same classes as the services that correspond to the subject matter of the advice, information or consultation, e.g., transportation consultancy (Cl. 39), business management consultancy (Cl. 35), financial consultancy (Cl. 36), beauty consultancy (Cl. 44). The rendering of the advice, information or consultancy by electronic means (e.g., telephone, computer) does not affect the classification of these services.
- Services rendered in the framework of franchising are in principle classified in the same class as the particular services provided by the franchisor (e.g., business advice relating to franchising (Cl. 35), financing services relating to franchising (Cl. 36), legal services relating to franchising (Cl. 45)).
