Goods, Services, and the Nice Classes: A Classification Checklist

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A trademark protects only the goods and services you actually claim, and the USPTO files every offering into the 45 standardized drawers of the Nice Classification. This checklist walks a founder or practitioner through a five-phase workflow: inventorying every product and service, mapping each to a class and pre-approved wording in the USPTO ID Manual, drafting identifications that are definite and properly scoped, counting classes and budgeting the post-2025 per-class fees and behavior-based surcharges, and clearing the coordinated and related classes an examiner will cross-search. It explains why the class number is administratively "ministerial" under 15 U.S.C. 1112 while the words of your identification are deeply substantive, and why classification still drives fees, search scope, and the completeness of your protection. Worked examples, WHY notes, and trap warnings accompany every step, including the one-way narrow-but-never-broaden door, the Class 9 versus Class 42 software split, and the audit risk of over-claiming. Always confirm live fees and the current ID Manual before filing.

Intellectual Property → Trademark | Published 28 June 2026 | rightsy.io

A trademark is not a flag you plant over a word and then own in every direction forever. It is a right anchored to specific commerce — particular goods on particular shelves, particular services for particular customers. To keep all of that commerce sortable, the law files everything humans buy and sell into a 45-drawer cabinet called the Nice Classification. Choosing the right drawers, and writing the right label on each one, is the quiet engineering job underneath every trademark application. Do it well and you fence in exactly the territory you occupy. Do it carelessly and you either leave gaps a competitor can walk through or overpay for ground you will never use.

This is a checklist, so it is built to be worked phase by phase, box by box. But classification rewards understanding, not rote box-ticking, so each phase carries WHY notes, trap warnings, and concrete worked examples with invented brands. By the end you should be able to look at any business — a coffee startup, a clothing label, a software company — and confidently say "that's six classes, here's why, and here's what it costs."

First principles: the class is ministerial, the words are not

Here is the paradox that confuses almost everyone, including some lawyers. The class number itself does not define your rights. By statute, the Director of the USPTO "may establish a classification of goods and services, for convenience of Patent and Trademark Office administration, but not to limit or extend the applicant's or registrant's rights." Lanham Act § 30, 15 U.S.C. § 1112. The Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure says the same thing in plainer words: classification is administrative housekeeping. TMEP § 1401.03(b). Because it is administrative, a dispute about which class an item belongs in is generally resolved by petition to the Director under 37 C.F.R. § 2.146 — not by the kind of substantive appeal you would take to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board over registrability.

So the class number is ministerial. Fine. But do not let that lull you, because the words of your identification of goods and services are intensely substantive. Those words are the legal description of your property. They set the metes and bounds of what your registration covers, what an examiner compares you against, what you can sue over with the presumptions a registration carries, and what survives an audit five years later. The class is the drawer; the identification is the deed. People who treat both as bureaucratic trivia tend to learn the difference the expensive way.

Three practical consequences flow from getting classification right, and they are the reason this checklist exists:

One important nuance, because precision matters here. It is a useful shorthand to say "you are protected only for the goods and services you claim," and for the four corners of your registration certificate that is essentially true. But trademark enforcement is broader than the certificate. The likelihood-of-confusion analysis reaches related goods and services, not just identical ones, and the common-law "zone of natural expansion" can extend rights into areas a brand would naturally grow into. So the identification defines your registration; relatedness defines your reach. We will use both ideas throughout.

If you are still at the stage of choosing the mark itself — before you ever get to goods and services — start one step back with picking a mark that can actually be protected and where your word sits on the Abercrombie spectrum from generic to fanciful. This checklist assumes you have a mark and now need to describe what you sell.

A short, useful history of the Nice cabinet

You do not need to be a treaty historian to file a trademark, but a minute of background makes the rest of this checklist click into place.

The cabinet has 45 drawers because of a 1957 treaty signed in Nice, France: the Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (June 15, 1957, as revised at Stockholm in 1967 and Geneva in 1977, and amended in 1979). It is administered today by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and it standardizes how member countries sort goods and services so that a "Class 25" filing means roughly the same thing in Tokyo, Toronto, and Topeka.

The split is simple to remember:

The list is a living document. WIPO revises it on a roughly five-year cycle (we are in the 12th edition, in force since January 1, 2023) and pushes annual versions within each edition (so a 2026 filing reads against the 2026 version). New commerce forces new entries; downloadable apps, NFTs, virtual goods, and cultivated-meat products have all elbowed their way in over recent cycles.

The United States adopts the Nice list by rule. 37 C.F.R. § 2.85 provides that the international classification governs U.S. applications and registrations. A historical footnote that still bites: before September 1, 1973, the United States used its own home-grown classification (the "prior U.S. classes"), which is why a century-old registration may carry a class number that no longer maps to anything. If you are reading an old registration, ignore the antique class and look at the goods.

One more cross-border wrinkle worth knowing, because it explains a rule we will hit hard in Phase 3. In some jurisdictions practitioners used to file a bare class heading — the official one-line summary of a class — and treat it as a claim to "everything in the class." Europe largely ended that practice after the Court of Justice's IP Translator decision, which held that class headings must be read for what their words actually say, with the "clarity and precision" required to identify the goods. Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys v. Registrar of Trade Marks ("IP Translator"), Case C-307/10 (CJEU, June 19, 2012). The United States never allowed the class-heading shortcut at all. In U.S. practice, a class heading is never an acceptable identification. Remember that; it is a common and costly assumption.

The golden rule of identifications: shrink, never grow

Before any boxes get ticked, internalize the single rule that governs every drafting decision below.

You can always narrow an identification after filing. You can never broaden it. TMEP § 1402.06. The day you file sets the outer boundary of your goods and services for that application, frozen as of your filing date. Examination can carve away (you delete a refused item, you accept a limiting amendment). Examination cannot add (you cannot bolt on goods you forgot, or stretch "hats" into "all headgear and clothing").

Picture a one-way door. Walk in carrying a generous-but-honest description of your real product line, and you can set bags down on the way through. Walk in carrying a stingy description, and you are stuck with it — the door will not let you go back for more. The strategic implication runs through this entire checklist: describe the business you actually have and genuinely plan to have, in full, at filing. Not the fantasy empire (over-claiming has its own penalties, covered in Phase 3), and not a timid sliver (under-claiming traps you behind the no-broadening door).

How to work this checklist

Five phases, in order, each a gate you should clear before moving on:

  1. Inventory everything the brand touches.
  2. Map each offering to a class using the USPTO ID Manual.
  3. Draft identifications that are definite and rightly sized.
  4. Count the classes and budget the money.
  5. Clear the whole neighborhood — coordinated and related classes — before you file.

A running example will travel with us: BrewLoop, Inc., a specialty-coffee subscription startup. BrewLoop's founder swears she is "in one class — coffee." She is, in fact, in about six. Watch how that happens.

Phase 1 — Inventory everything the brand touches

Before you reach for a single class number, build a complete list of what the business sells and does.

WHY this matters. The most frequent and most damaging classification error is under-classifying: the founder who is certain she is "one class" almost always sells across three, four, or more. A single modern product line routinely spans the physical good, the app that controls it, the website that sells it, and the support service behind it. You cannot classify what you have not listed, and you cannot widen the list after filing (the one-way door again). Spend your first hour as an inventory clerk, not a lawyer.

WATCH the intent-to-use column. Marking items "intent to use" is not a free pass to list aspirations. A § 1(b) application requires a genuine, bona fide intent to use the mark on each listed item, and that intent must be provable by objective evidence — business plans, product designs, correspondence — not a private wish. The Federal Circuit will void or pare a registration where the documentary cupboard is bare. M.Z. Berger & Co. v. Swatch AG, 787 F.3d 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2015). If you are filing before launch, get the mechanics right with our guide to intent-to-use applications and claiming a mark before you sell.

TRAP — counting "products" instead of "lines of commerce." Twelve flavors of the same coffee are not twelve classes; they are one identification ("roasted coffee"). But coffee, a travel mug, a T-shirt, an app, an online store, and a café are six different kinds of commerce. Inventory by kind of commerce, not by SKU.

BrewLoop, Phase 1 inventory. Roasted coffee beans (use). Reusable insulated travel mugs (use). A downloadable mobile app for managing subscriptions and ordering (use). Branded T-shirts, hoodies, and caps sold to fans (intent to use — merch launches next quarter). An online store selling all of the above (use). A flagship café opening downtown (intent to use). Six lines of commerce. The founder's "one class" just became a planning problem.

Phase 2 — Map each offering to a class (let the ID Manual do the heavy lifting)

Now translate your inventory into classes and, just as importantly, into pre-approved wording.

WHY the ID Manual is your best free tool. It does three jobs at once: it reveals your real class count before you spend a dollar, it hands you wording an examiner has already agreed to accept, and it surfaces classification traps while you can still fix them cheaply. Treating the Manual as the backbone of your application is the highest-leverage move in the whole process. Skipping it — drafting from imagination — is how filers stumble into refusals and surcharges they never needed to pay.

The software fork: Class 9 versus Class 42

No single line in the cabinet swallows more modern filings than the software split, so give it its own decision.

Many products exist in both forms — a downloadable app and a web dashboard — and then you file in both Class 9 and Class 42. Some platforms add Class 38 when the offering is fundamentally about transmitting communications (messaging, streaming delivery), or Class 41 when it delivers entertainment or education content. Decide deliberately; do not let "our software" collapse into a single guessed class. For the full picture of how code, brand, and content get protected together, see our field guide to what's protectable in a mobile app and the broader IP strategy for your mobile app.

Classification surprises that catch everyone

Some items simply do not live where intuition says. A short tour of the usual culprits:

TRAP — the "obvious" class that is wrong. A founder selling reusable water bottles often files in a beverage or sporting-goods class on instinct and draws a classification refusal. The Manual would have said Class 21 in five seconds. Look it up; do not guess.

BrewLoop, Phase 2 map. Roasted coffee → Class 30. Insulated travel mugs → Class 21. Downloadable ordering app → Class 9. T-shirts, hoodies, caps → Class 25. Online retail store services featuring coffee and related goods → Class 35. Café services → Class 43. Six classes: 9, 21, 25, 30, 35, 43. (Had BrewLoop also offered a hosted brew-analytics dashboard, add Class 42 for seven.)

Phase 3 — Draft identifications that are definite and rightly sized

Classes are buckets; identifications are the labels on the buckets, and labels are where rights live. This phase is about wording.

WHY a class heading is never enough. In U.S. practice the examiner needs to know exactly what you sell to classify it, search it, and define its scope. "Clothing" could mean socks or ball gowns; "software" could mean anything. An identification that is too broad or indefinite draws a requirement to amend, and you will be doing this drafting anyway — just later, slower, and possibly after a fee. In re Nett Designs, Inc., 236 F.3d 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2001), is a useful reminder that each application is judged on its own record; the fact that some other registrant got vague wording through years ago does not entitle you to it. Draft it right the first time.

WHY "rightly sized" cuts both ways. Under-claim and you trap yourself behind the one-way door, leaving real products unregistered. Over-claim — padding the list with goods you do not actually sell to "be safe" — and you invite two distinct problems. First, non-use: goods you never use are vulnerable, and a registration built on puffed-up claims can be challenged for fraud or partial cancellation. Anyone can petition the TTAB to cancel a registration for goods the owner never used. Second, audits: the USPTO runs a post-registration audit program, 37 C.F.R. § 2.161, randomly demanding extra proof of use for listed goods and services. Fail the audit and the unsupported items get deleted — and deleting goods after a maintenance filing now carries its own per-class fee. The lesson is symmetrical: claim your real lanes, all of them, and only them.

TRAP — the aspirational laundry list. A skincare startup that actually sells one face cream lists "cosmetics; soaps; perfumery; essential oils; hair lotions; dentifrices" because a template did. Five of those six are fiction. When the audit letter arrives, the registrant is choosing between manufacturing evidence and surrendering goods — a bad menu created entirely at drafting time.

A drafting micro-pattern that works. Lead with the category, then enumerate: "Clothing, namely, t-shirts, hoodies, and caps." The "namely" structure is the Manual's house style — definite, classifiable, examiner-friendly. Mirror it when you must write custom wording. If you would rather not wrestle with scope and definiteness alone, this is exactly the kind of judgment call where Rightsy's virtual trademark attorneys earn their keep: wide enough to cover the business, narrow enough to survive an audit.

BrewLoop, Phase 3 drafts.

  • Class 30: "Roasted coffee; coffee beans; ground coffee."
  • Class 21: "Insulated travel mugs; reusable beverage bottles sold empty."
  • Class 9: "Downloadable mobile application for managing coffee subscriptions, placing orders, and tracking deliveries."
  • Class 25: "Clothing, namely, t-shirts, hoodies, and caps."
  • Class 35: "Online retail store services featuring coffee, coffee-making equipment, and apparel."
  • Class 43: "Café services; coffee bar services." Each is specific, classifiable, and matched to a real BrewLoop lane. None says "everything in the class."

Phase 4 — Count the classes and budget the money

Now the arithmetic. Classification is where a trademark project meets its invoice, and the USPTO charges by the drawer.

The 2025 fee architecture, decoded

If you learned trademark fees in the TEAS era, unlearn them. On January 18, 2025, the USPTO retired the old TEAS Plus / TEAS Standard tiers and replaced them with a single base application fee plus behavior-based surcharges. Any quote you see referencing "TEAS Plus $250" or "TEAS Standard $350" is obsolete.

The structure now looks like this (per class, under the 2025 final rule — always verify the live figures before filing, because fees change):

The behavioral message is unmistakable: the USPTO now prices convenience. A clean, ID-Manual-based, fully-completed application pays only the base fee. The same application drafted free-form pays the base fee plus $200 per class — and on a four-class filing like BrewLoop's, that is roughly $800 in avoidable surcharges, before counting any length or completeness penalties. Phase 2's discipline (use the Manual) is not aesthetic; it is the money.

TRAP — the linear-cost surprise. Fees scale linearly with class count, and not only at filing. Every maintenance step charges per class for the life of the mark: the § 8 declaration of continued use (15 U.S.C. § 1058) and the § 9 renewal (15 U.S.C. § 1059) are both per-class events. A six-class registration is a six-class bill every renewal cycle, forever. A mark you let bloat at filing keeps charging rent. Keeping a multi-class registration alive through those deadlines is its own discipline — see maintenance, renewals, and the deadlines that kill marks.

Multi-class application or separate filings?

Section 30 of the Act expressly lets you cover multiple classes in one application, 15 U.S.C. § 1112; 37 C.F.R. § 2.86. One filing, one serial number, one prosecution — usually simpler and cheaper to manage than several parallel files. The catch is that a multi-class application is, in some respects, several applications wearing one coat: each class needs its own basis, its own specimen, and can rise or fall on its own. If the examiner refuses one class, the others need not sink with it — which is exactly what the escape hatches are for.

When might you file separately instead? When you expect one class to be contested (a likely refusal or opposition) and want the clean classes to register on their own timeline without the contested one dragging them; or when different classes have genuinely different ownership or filing-date needs. For most founders, though, a single multi-class application is the right default.

One specimen per class — no sharing

A specimen is real-world proof of the mark in use, and the USPTO wants one per class, each showing the mark used on that class's goods or services. A photo of a coffee bag (Class 30) proves nothing about the app (Class 9) or the café (Class 43). The single most common multi-class stumble is assuming one good specimen covers them all; it does not. Plan a specimen for each lane: product packaging or labels for goods, and advertising, signage, or screenshots showing the service for services.

Escape hatches: delete and divide

Two relief valves keep a multi-class application from becoming all-or-nothing:

Knowing these exist changes how you file: you can include a class you are slightly unsure about, confident you can sever it later rather than letting it block everything. If a refusal does land on one of your classes, the orderly way through it is our trademark office-action response checklist.

BrewLoop, Phase 4 budget. Six classes (9, 21, 25, 30, 35, 43). Using ID Manual wording throughout and filing complete: six × base fee, no surcharges. Switch to free-form drafting and it is six × (base + $200) — roughly $1,200 in pure surcharge, recurring nowhere but stinging once. One multi-class application, six specimens (a labeled coffee bag, a mug photo, an app screen, a tagged hoodie, a store webpage, and café signage), with delete/divide held in reserve in case the café class is slow.

Phase 5 — Clear the whole neighborhood, not just your class

You have classes and wording. Before you file, make sure no one is already standing where you want to stand — and that means searching wider than your own drawers.

Coordinated classes and the examiner's cross-search

When the examiner evaluates your application for conflicts under Lanham Act § 2(d), the search engine does not stop at your class. It pulls coordinated classes — sets of classes the USPTO treats as commercially linked — so that a Class 25 clothing application is automatically read against retail (Class 35) and certain accessory classes. The reason is the controlling one in all of trademark conflict analysis: confusion follows relatedness, not class numbers.

That principle, drawn from the DuPont factors, is worth stating twice. In re E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 476 F.2d 1357 (C.C.P.A. 1973), lists the similarity or dissimilarity of the goods and services as a core likelihood-of-confusion factor, and relatedness — not a shared class — is what drives it. Two consequences follow, both counterintuitive:

The Restatement frames the same point in market terms, listing relatedness of goods and channels of trade among the factors that prove a likelihood of confusion. Restatement (Third) of Unfair Competition § 21 (1995). For the full mechanics of how courts and the TTAB weigh all of this, work through likelihood of confusion as a brand owner's field map.

The fashion cluster and the software cluster

Two clusters catch more founders than any others.

The fashion cluster. A clothing brand lives in Class 25, but its commercial neighbors are Class 35 (retail), Class 18 (bags), Class 14 (jewelry), and the textile and accessory classes. A label that clears Class 25 alone and ignores Class 35 can sail through filing and then draw an opposition from a similarly named retailer it never searched. Clearing the cluster up front is far cheaper than litigating it later.

The software cluster. Code-based businesses straddle Class 9 (downloadable), Class 42 (SaaS and tech services), and sometimes Class 38 (telecommunications/transmission) or Class 41 (content). A senior mark sitting one class over from where you filed is still a senior mark. Search all the doors your product could plausibly walk through.

Where Rightsy fits in this phase. This is the part of the workflow our platform was built for. You can run a knockout and full clearance pass across your classes and their neighbors with Rightsy's trademark and logo search — words and design elements in one sweep — then check Rightsy's TTAB proceedings database to see whether a likely-conflicting registrant has a track record of opposing or cancelling marks like yours. If you are buying a brand or worried a cited registration may have changed hands, Rightsy's assignment records let you trace the chain of title before you build on it (and when you sell or buy a mark, our assignment recordation checklist covers the paperwork). After you file, Rightsy's brand-monitoring and watch service flags new entrants in your classes and the coordinated ones, so you hear about a problem while it is still a fresh application and not yet a competitor with five years of use.

TRAP — clearing only your literal class. The clothing brand that searches Class 25 and nothing else; the app maker who searches Class 9 and forgets Class 42; the wine label that ignores Class 32 grape juice. Each "cleared" itself into an avoidable fight. Relatedness is the search radius, not the class number.

BrewLoop, Phase 5 clearance. Search not just 9, 21, 25, 30, 35, and 43, but their neighbors: other beverage classes (32, 33) for related drinks, Class 21 housewares for the drinkware cluster, Class 35 retail against any "BrewLoop"-adjacent shops, and Class 43 against cafés and coffee bars nationwide. Pull design codes for the logo's looping-steam mark. Check TTAB for any "Brew-" coffee oppositions. Only then file.

A worked example, end to end: BrewLoop's six classes

Putting all five phases together, here is the full classification map a careful filer would hand to counsel — the deliverable this checklist is designed to produce.

| Line of commerce | Class | Identification (ID-Manual style) | Use / ITU | Specimen plan | |---|---|---|---|---| | Roasted coffee | 30 | Roasted coffee; coffee beans; ground coffee | Use | Labeled coffee bag | | Travel mugs / bottles | 21 | Insulated travel mugs; reusable beverage bottles sold empty | Use | Product photo with mark | | Ordering app | 9 | Downloadable mobile application for managing coffee subscriptions and placing orders | Use | App-store screen / launch screen | | Apparel | 25 | Clothing, namely, t-shirts, hoodies, and caps | Intent to use | Hangtag / packaging (at use) | | Online store | 35 | Online retail store services featuring coffee, coffee equipment, and apparel | Use | Store webpage with mark | | Café | 43 | Café services; coffee bar services | Intent to use | Signage / menu (at opening) |

Six classes. One multi-class application under 15 U.S.C. § 1112 and 37 C.F.R. § 2.86. ID-Manual wording throughout to dodge the $200-per-class free-form surcharge. Two classes filed on a § 1(b) intent-to-use basis (apparel, café), four on actual use. Six specimens, one per class, no sharing. Delete-and-divide held in reserve if the café class lags. The founder who started at "I'm in one class — coffee" is now correctly fenced across six, paying for exactly the ground she occupies and clearing the neighbors before she plants the flag.

A founder's cheat sheet: the classes you'll actually hit

The full cabinet has 45 drawers, but most consumer and tech businesses live in a dozen or so. Use this as a fast orientation, then confirm every item in the live ID Manual — these one-liners are a map, not a substitute for the Manual.

Notice the recurring split that defines modern filings: the good sits in one drawer (coffee in 30, a downloadable app in 9, a T-shirt in 25) while the service of selling or hosting it sits in another (retail in 35, SaaS in 42, a café in 43). Almost every brand of any size touches both halves of the cabinet.

Common mistakes (and how to dodge them)

A consolidated trap list — the errors that produce most classification refusals, surcharges, and later cancellations:

Primary authority and tools

Statutes (Lanham Act). Classification and multi-class applications, § 30, 15 U.S.C. § 1112 (classification is for administrative convenience, "not to limit or extend" rights). Fee-setting authority, 15 U.S.C. § 1113. Intent-to-use basis, § 1(b), 15 U.S.C. § 1051(b). Per-class maintenance: continued-use declaration, § 8, 15 U.S.C. § 1058; renewal, § 9, 15 U.S.C. § 1059. Confusion bar, § 2(d), 15 U.S.C. § 1052(d).

Regulations (37 C.F.R.). § 2.85 (adoption of the international classification; prior U.S. classes); § 2.86 (multiple-class applications); § 2.87 (dividing an application); § 2.32(a)(6) (identification requirement); § 2.146 (petitions to the Director, including classification disputes); § 2.161 (post-registration audit authority).

USPTO guidance (TMEP). §§ 1401–1402 generally; § 1401.03(b) (classification ministerial); § 1402.01 (definiteness of identifications); § 1402.06 (scope of identification; no broadening after filing).

Cases. In re E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 476 F.2d 1357 (C.C.P.A. 1973) (relatedness of goods as a confusion factor); In re Martin's Famous Pastry Shoppe, Inc., 748 F.2d 1565 (Fed. Cir. 1984) (related foods across class lines); In re Nett Designs, Inc., 236 F.3d 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (each application judged on its own record); M.Z. Berger & Co. v. Swatch AG, 787 F.3d 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (bona fide intent requires objective evidence). For contrast in comparative practice, Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys v. Registrar of Trade Marks ("IP Translator"), Case C-307/10 (CJEU 2012) (class headings read for their actual words).

Treaty. Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (1957, as revised), administered by WIPO; 12th edition, with annual versions (wipo.int).

Secondary sources. 3 J. Thomas McCarthy, McCarthy on Trademarks and Unfair Competition ch. 19 (5th ed.) (registration procedures, classification, and identifications); Restatement (Third) of Unfair Competition § 21 (1995) (market factors, including relatedness of goods, in proving likelihood of confusion).

Tools. USPTO Trademark ID Manual (Acceptable Identification of Goods and Services); USPTO fee schedule (uspto.gov); Rightsy trademark, logo, assignment, and TTAB search (rightsy.io).

Fees, ID Manual entries, and the Nice version all change. Confirm the live figures and the current Manual before you file.

Related Resources

This checklist is general information, not legal advice. Classification turns on the specific goods and services of a specific brand; consult qualified trademark counsel — or Rightsy's virtual trademark attorneys — about your particular mark before filing.

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