What is Trademark Class 35?

The International Trademark classes were established by a multilateral treaty amongst United Nations’ countries under the Nice agreement of 1957. The Nice agreement is an international classification of goods and services applied for the registration of marks under the authority of the World Intellectual Property Organisation.

When you file for a Trademark, you are required to choose from atleast one of the International classes to identify and zero in on from the list of given goods and services for the purpose of your application.

To help you decide what goods or services to list think about the exact nature of your business, you must ask yourself the following questions and arrive at a definitive answer-

• From where do you derive your business income? What is its main source?
• What is the nature of your business and business activities?
• What are you known for by your customers/clients?
• What products or services does your business provide?

If your TM application deals with goods then as per the Nice agreement, classes 1- 34 will apply. However, if your TM application relates to services instead, then classes 35-45 may apply.

While applying for your trademark application, you are also supposed to pay some trademark application fee which depends upon the trademark class you are applying to. It may so happen that the trademarks you are applying for, fall under various different categories, in such a case, your trademark application fee will be calculation by taking into account all the applicable Trademark Classes in the agreement.

In the present post, we shall be discussing in detail Trademark Class 35 of the Nice Agreement which relates to trademark applications in the service sector.

Trademarks Class 35 relates to the (Advertising and business) Advertising; business management; business administration; office functions. Thus it may be seen that Trademark Class 35 basically consists of services that are rendered by an individual or an organization for the purpose of commercial activities, business management of a commercial or an industrial enterprise. It also includes advertisements or declarations made to public at large via various communication channels.

From the first part of the description, one may easily infer that Trademark Class 35, or atleast a part of it relates to advertising or any other related activities like promotion or marketing. However, this too comes with its own set of exceptions. The most glaring of all being, it does not consists of tangible advertising like billboards that you may see on a highway, flyers, pamphlets, brochures etc. This is so because Trademark Class 35 only deals with the aspect of ‘services’ and not goods. This distinction is imperative.

The second part of the definition talks about business activities which may seem easy to decipher at first glance but the reality is far from this. Though theoretically all business activities should have been under the ambit of Trademark Class 35 as per the description but this is not the case.

Not all business related services come under the umbrella of this class but some discernible patterns seems to have been developing in the recent time. Essentially, a service that can be classified solely as a business service would come under the latter part of the definition of the Trademark Class 35. For example services like consulting, administering, managing, developing, researching, organizing etc would be covered in this description.

Further employment and retail services like hiring, recruiting, training, or selling of products would be covered in this definition.

Thus it may be concluded from the above mentioned information that in case of services that fall under the categories of advertising or business management function, an individual or a business should apply under Trademark Class 35 to avail the requisite rights.

Author: This blog is written by  Ms. Mrinaal Datt, student of  University Institute of Legal Studies, Punjab University, a passionate blogger & intern at  Aapka Consultant.

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