New year, new Nice Classification
On January 1, 2020, the 2020 version of the eleventh edition of the Nice Classification will take effect. The World Intellectual Property Organization (hereinafter, WIPO) has announced that with the entry of the new year 2020, the new version of the eleventh edition of the International Classification of Products and Services for the Registration of Marks will become a reality, also known as the “Nice Classification”.
This Classification was established by virtue of the arrangement concluded in Nice on June 15, 1957. The countries party to this arrangement (89 States in January 2019) therefore apply the Nice Classification for the registration of trademarks, either as a main system or as a secondary system, by appearing in official documents and publications related to marked records the numbers of the Nice classes to relate the products and services for which the trademarks are registered.
The use of the Nice Classification by national offices therefore allows the submission of applications with reference to a single classification system in all the States parties to the Agreement. With this, the preparation of applications is greatly simplified, since the products and services to which a given trademark is applied will be classified in the same way in all countries that have adopted it.
The Classification is made up of classes. Specifically, there are 34 classes in which the products are framed, and 11 in which services are delimited. Within these classes are around 10,000 items of products and 1,000 of services, which makes it easier to homogenize the process when applying for a trademark in any of the States parties to the Agreement. In addition, the fact that the Nice Classification exists in several languages saves applicants a considerable amount of work at the time they must submit a list of products and services in a language other than the country of origin of the trademark.
New version of 2020 of the eleventh edition of the Nice Classification incorporates a series of changes from the previous version, being applied to all applications for international registration that have been received by the Offices of origin as of January 1, 2020 , and all applications for international registration that have been received by the WIPO International Office on January 1, 2020 or at a later date, when these applications have been received by the WIPO International Office after the planned two-month period in Article 3.4) of the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Trademarks.
In Casas Asin we find your willingness to resolve any questions or queries that may arise when registering your trademark, and we encourage you to contact our firm to ensure your trademark rights.
