Trademark Classes

Every registered trade mark or those submitted for an application for registration has to be attached to a class of goods or services. This allows marks to be organized correctly as well as highlighting whether the same mark registered for two different types of goods is enough to warrant infringement or whether the goods are different enough to not have an effect. The Trade Marks Act 1994 clearly states that a mark has to distinguish goods and services.  Classifying a mark in relation to the goods or services it represents is the best way to do this.

The UK Intellectual Property Office outlines the 45 classes on their website, distinguishing the ones in relation to goods and those to services. Classes 1-34 are exclusively concerned with goods. In each class of goods, a list of related items are grouped together. These could be variations of the same product as seen is class 18 which contains leather and imitations of leather including all leather goods. In contrast, the class could contain different types of goods that fits together well as they may be used in a similar way or all apply to a certain industry. A clear example of this is class 30, which covers items like coffee, tea, sugar, confectionary, and more condiment type food items. In addition class 34, which contains tobacco, matches and other smokers articles, is a clear example of a class directly linking to an industry.

Classes 35 – 45 are in relation to services.  These classes are organized in a different way. The classes for services are more of a broad-spectrum class, which can contain a number of different services that are vaguely linked by a common ground. Class 43 is a clear example of this as it broadly covers services for providing food and drink but also contains particulars including retirement home services and crèche services. In addition some classes of services are grouped together in relation the receiver. Class 45 for example contains legal services, social work services and funeral services amongst others, which are services provided to the public under their instruction. Whereas Class 35 is more business focused containing advertising, business administration, retail and business management.

To conclude, it can be difficult to pinpoint a class of goods and services that may relate to your trademark but if you instruct the Trademarkroom to aid your trade mark registration, you will have an expert to put your mind at rest and give you accurate results.

By Ellis Sweetenham

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Trademark classes

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