Trademark class
What Trademark class means, where you will meet it and what it means for your business.
DefinitionA trademark class is one of the 45 categories in the Nice Classification, 1 to 34 for goods and 35 to 45 for services, in which a mark is registered and protected.
A trademark is protected only for the classes it is registered in, so the class decides what your rights cover. A software startup typically files in class 9 (software products) and class 42 (software as a service), an online store in class 35 (retail and e-commerce), a restaurant in class 43, and a clothing brand in class 25. Each class carries its own government fee of ₹4,500 for individuals, startups and MSMEs or ₹9,000 for others. You meet classes when filing TM-A and when the Registry cites an earlier mark in the same class in its examination report. What it means for you: the same word can be owned by different businesses in different classes, so a search must be class-specific, and adding a class later means a fresh application with a fresh date, so cover your core and next-year activities at the outset.