Frequently Asked Questions: Nice Classification
It is an international classification system used to classify goods and services for the purposes of the registration of marks.
The Nice Agreement is the WIPO-administered multilateral treaty that establishes the Nice Classification. It was signed in Nice, on June 15, 1957 and entered into force on April 8, 1961. It was revised in Stockholm on July 14, 1967, and in Geneva on May 13, 1977 and modified on September 28, 1979.
It is an international classification system used to classify goods and services for the purposes of the registration of marks.
The competent offices of the countries party to the Nice Agreement are required to include in the official documents and publications concerning the registration of marks the numbers of the classes to which the goods and services for which the mark is registered belong.
It is an international classification system used to classify goods and services for the purposes of the registration of marks.
Use of the Nice Classification by the competent trademark offices has the advantage of filing trademark registration applications with reference to a single classification system. The drafting of applications is thereby greatly simplified as the goods and services to which a given mark applies will be classified in the same way in all countries that have adopted the Classification. Moreover, as the Classification exists in several languages, applying the indications of goods and services of the alphabetical list can save applicants a considerable amount of translation work when filing a list of goods and services in a language other than that of the office of origin.
The list of contracting parties to the Nice Agreement is regularly updated.
Around 150 offices in the world apply the Nice Classification. This number includes member as well as non-member countries. In addition, four regional organizations, namely the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI), the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property (BOIP) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), use the Nice Classification. The International Bureau of WIPO also applies the Nice Classification in the framework of the Madrid System for the international registration of marks.
The Nice Classification consists of a list of classes together with explanatory notes and an alphabetical list of goods and services. There are 34 classes of goods and 11 classes of services. The class headings describe in very broad terms the nature of the goods or services contained in each class. The explanatory notes of a given class describe in greater detail the types of products or services included in that class. The most detailed level of the Classification is the alphabetical list which contains around 10,000 indications of goods and 1,000 indications of services.
In order to keep the Nice Classification up to date, it is continuously revised. A new edition is now published every three years (as from NCL12), instead of the previous five-year period. A new version of each edition is published annually (as from NCL10). The revision is carried out by the Committee of Experts set up under the Nice Agreement. All States party to the Agreement are members of the Committee of Experts.
Versions are published and enter into force annually. Each new version of the Classification includes all changes adopted by the Committee of Experts since the adoption of the previous version. “Changes” consist in adding new goods and services to, and deleting goods and services from the alphabetical list, and modifying the wording of the indications of goods and services, the class headings and the explanatory notes.
Editions are published and enter into force every three years. Each new edition of the Classification includes all changes and amendments adopted annually by the Committee of Experts during the whole three-year revision period. “Amendments” means any transfer of goods or services from one class to another or the creation of any new class.
The authentic versions of the Nice Classification (in English and French) are published online by WIPO. The paper publication has been discontinued, the 10th edition, published in June 2011, was the last printed edition. It comprised two parts. Part I contained a list of goods and services set out in the alphabetical order of goods on one side and of services on the other side. Part II contained the list of goods and services ordered by classes, in alphabetical order within each class. There was also a printed bilingual (English/French) edition. Since the 2013 version of the 10th edition, WIPO publishes the Nice Classification online only.
"NCLPub" is the current online official publication of the Nice Classification. It went live at the beginning of 2013. It contains the current edition-version of the Classification as well as links to the previous editions.
The "Hierarchy" is a tree structure that has been developed within each of the 45 classes of the Nice Classification by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and the national trademark offices of the European Union with the collaboration of WIPO. In NCLPub, the view mode "Hierarchical" shows the hierarchy structure, and the view mode "Full" shows the goods and services of the Nice Classification, arranged according to the hierarchy.
Although based on the Nice Classification, the Hierarchy does not form part of the Classification nor binds the countries of the Nice Union in any way. According to Article 1(2) of the Nice Agreement, the Classification “consists of (i) a list of classes, together with, as the case may be, explanatory notes; (ii) an alphabetical list of goods and services…with an indication of the class into which each of the goods or services falls.” The Hierarchy is available in NCLPub only as an additional tool that can be used to organize large databases of goods and services by concepts and so to assist users in searching adequate terms for the specification of goods and services.
The complete Nice Classification is available only via Internet; there is no printed publication of the Nice Classification. However, the Internet publication allows for printouts of parts of the Nice Classification, through the hyperlink Download in the Nice Classification and in the Download and IT Support area.
The Nice Classification is available for downloading in PDF and XML formats from the Download and IT Support area. The revision files are available in Excel format for the List of Goods and Services and in Word format for the List of Classes and List of Classes with Explanatory Notes.
For more details, refer to document NCL master files specification 
.
No, you can download the NCL files, but you have to acknowledge WIPO's copyright if you plan to use the NCL on your site. For more details, please refer to the conditions of use in the Download and IT Support area.
New versions of the Nice Classification enter into force on January 1 of every year. Six months in advance, the early publication is made available for downloading or consultation.