International Trademark Classification Changes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>Patent and Trademark Office</SUBAGY> <CFR>37 CFR Part 6</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PTO-T-2025-0013]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0651-AD87</RIN> <SUBJECT>International Trademark Classification Changes</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> United States Patent and Trademark Office, Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issues this final rule to incorporate classification changes adopted by the Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Agreement). These changes are listed in the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Classification), which is published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and will become effective on January 1, 2026. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective on January 1, 2026. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Cristiana Schwab, Office of the Deputy Commissioner for Trademark Examination Policy, at 571-272-3514 or <E T="03">TMFRNotices@uspto.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This final rule incorporates classification changes adopted by the Nice Agreement that will become effective on January 1, 2026. Specifically, this rule adds new goods to, or deletes existing goods from, eight class headings to further define and identify the type of goods appropriate to the classes. The USPTO is revising § 6.1 of 37 CFR part 6 to incorporate classification changes and modifications, as listed in the Nice Classification (13th ed., ver. 2026), published by WIPO, that will become effective on January 1, 2026. The Nice Agreement is a multilateral treaty, administered by WIPO, that establishes the international classification of goods and services for the purpose of registering trademarks and service marks. Since September 1, 1973, this international classification system is the controlling system used by the United States, and it applies, for all statutory purposes, to all applications filed on or after September 1, 1973, and their resulting registrations. <E T="03">See</E> 37 CFR 2.85(a). Every signatory to the Nice Agreement must use the international classification system. Each state party to the Nice Agreement is represented in the Committee of Experts of the Nice Union (Committee of Experts), which meets annually to vote on proposed changes to the Nice Classification. Any state that is a party to the Nice Agreement may submit proposals for consideration by the other members of the Committee of Experts, in accordance with agreed-upon rules of procedure. Proposals are currently submitted annually to an electronic forum on the WIPO website, where they are commented on, modified, and compiled for further discussion and voting at the annual Committee of Experts meeting. In 2013, the Committee of Experts began annual revisions to the Nice Classification. The annual revisions, which are published electronically and enter into force on January 1 each year, are referred to as versions and identified by an edition number and the year of the effective date ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> “Nice Classification, 10th ed., ver. 2013” or “NCL 10-2013”). Each annual version includes changes adopted by the Committee of Experts since the adoption of the previous version, consisting of: (1) the addition of new goods and services to, and the deletion of goods and services from, the Alphabetical List; and (2) any modifications to the wording in the Alphabetical List, the class headings, or the explanatory notes that do not involve the transfer of goods or services from one class to another. As of January 1, 2023, new editions of the Nice Classification are published electronically every three years. They include all changes adopted since the previous annual version, as well as goods or services transferred from one class to another and new classes that have been created since the previous edition. The 35th session of the Committee of Experts, comprised of member states and WIPO, was held from April 28 to May 2, 2025, at WIPO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The revisions contained in this final rule consist of modifications to class headings that were voted upon and incorporated into the Nice Agreement during the session. Under the Nice Classification, there are 34 classes of goods and 11 classes of services, each with a class heading. Class headings generally indicate the fields to which goods and services belong. Specifically, this rule adds new goods to, or deletes existing goods from, eight class headings to further define and identify the types of goods appropriate to the classes. As a signatory to the Nice Agreement, the United States adopts these revisions pursuant to Article 1. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Regulatory Changes</HD> The USPTO is revising § 6.1 as follows: In Class 1, the wording and semicolon “putties and other paste fillers;” are deleted. In Class 3, the word “perfumery,” is amended to “perfumes” and the comma is deleted. The wording “essential oils” is deleted. In Class 5, the wording “veterinary use” is amended to “veterinary purposes.” The word “adhesive” is added before “plasters.” The wording “stopping teeth” is amended to “filling teeth.” In Class 8, the wording “Hand tools and implements, hand-operated” is amended to “Hand-operated hand tools and implements.” In Class 9, the word “media” is amended to “multimedia files.” The wording “and swimmers” is deleted. In Class 10, the wording “spectacles, contact lenses and sunglasses;” is added between “teeth” and “orthopaedic.” In Class 26, the word “braid” and the comma preceding it are deleted. In Class 29, the wording “for culinary purposes” is added after “meat extracts.” The wording “and vegetables” is amended to “vegetables and seaweeds” and a comma is added after “fruits.” <HD SOURCE="HD1">Rulemaking Requirements</HD> <E T="03">A. Administrative Procedure Act:</E> This final rule revises the regulations to reflect modifications to class headings, which indicate the classes to which goods and services belong, that were incorporated into the Nice Agreement. The changes in this final rule do not change the substantive criteria for the registration of a trademark. Therefore, the changes in this rulemaking involve rules of agency practice and procedure and/or interpretive rules and do not require notice-and-comment rulemaking pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B). See <E T="03">Perez</E> v. <E T="03">Mortg. Bankers Ass'n,</E> 575 U.S. 92, 97, 101 (2015) (explaining that interpretive rules “advise the public of the agency's construction of the statutes and rules which it administers” and do not require notice-and-comment when issued or amended); <E T="03">Cooper Techs. Co.</E> v. <E T="03">Dudas,</E> 536 F.3d 1330, 1336-37 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (stating that 5 U.S.C. 553, and thus 35 U.S.C. 2(b)(2)(B), do not require notice-and-comment rulemaking for “interpretative rules, general statements of policy, or rules of agency organization, procedure, or practice”); <E T="03">In re Chestek PLLC,</E> 92 F.4th 1105, 1110 (Fed. Cir. 2024) (noting that rule changes that “do[ ] not alter the substantive standards by which the USPTO evaluates trademark applications” are procedural in nature and thus “exempted from notice-and-comment rulemaking.”); and <E T="03">JEM Broadcasting Co.</E> v. <E T="03">F.C.C.,</E> 22 F.3d 320, 328 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (“[T]he `critical feature' of the procedural exception [in 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(A)] `is that it covers agency actions that do not themselves alter the rights or interests of parties, although [they] may alter the manner in which the parties present themselves or their viewpoints to the agency.' ” (quoting <E T="03">Batterton</E> v. <E T="03">Marshall,</E> 648 F.2d 694, 707 (D.C. Cir. 1980))). <E T="03">B. Regulatory Flexibility Act:</E> As prior notice and an opportunity for public comment are not required pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 553 or any other law, neither a Regulatory Flexibility Act analysis nor a certification under the Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) is required. <E T="03">See</E> 5 U.S.C. 603. <E T="03">C. Executive Order 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review):</E> This rulemaking has been determined to be not significant for purposes of Executive Order 12866 (Sept. 30, 1993). <E T="03">D. Executive Order 13563 (Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review):</E> The USPTO has complied with Executive Order 13563 (Jan. 18, 2011). Specifically, and as discussed above, the USPTO has, to the extent feasible and applicable: (1) made a reasoned determination that the benefits justify the costs of the rule; (2) tailored the rule to impose the least burden on society consistent with obtaining the regulatory objectives; (3) selected a regulatory approach that maximizes net benefits; (4) specified performance objectives; (5) identified and assessed available alternatives; (6) involved the public in an open exchange of information and perspectives among experts in relevant disciplines, affected stakeholders in the private sector, and the public as a whole, and provided online access to the rulemaking docket; (7) attempted to promote coordination, simplification, and harmonization across government agencies and identified goals designed to promote innovation; (8) considered approaches that reduce burdens and maintain flexibility and freedom of choice for the public; and (9) ensured the objectivity of scientific and technological information and processes. <E T="03">E. Executive Order 14192 (Deregulation):</E> This regulation is not an Executive ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 25k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━