The Nice Classification: New data base

The Spanish Patents and Trade Marks Office (OEPM) and the Office for Harmonization of the Internal Market (OHIM), in the framework of programmes for cooperation and convergence between Community trade marks offices, have reached an agreement to offer their users a common, harmonized data base in Spanish on products and services for registering trade marks.

The data base is available for all users under the heading “International classification of products and services (trade marks)” on the Spanish Patents and Trade Marks Office (OEPM) web site. This houses the computer program (CLINMAR) that will allow users to make their searches in the data base so that they can correctly classify products and services before applying to register their trade marks.

The new data base, updated and now in its 10th edition, contains more than 61,500 terms or descriptions of products and services indicating their Nice classification. Of these 61,500 terms or descriptions, about 12,000 correspond to the list of products and services officially adopted by WIPO for the Spanish language. The remainder, which complement the official Nice classification list, are the result of the harmonization work done by the OAPM and the OHIM.

Searches result in information on the origin of each term or description of products and services stating ‘Nice’ or ‘Harmonized’, depending on whether it corresponds to the official WIPO list or to the new terms or descriptions adopted by the OEPM and OHIM to complement the former.

Since this new data base was made publicly available (on 31 January last), any term or product or service description contained in it can be included in the list of products and services of new trade mark registration applications with the certainty that they will be accepted by the OEPM, unless there are evident material or translation errors.