06 | 07 | 2012

SIPO joins EuroClass

State Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Croatia joins the OHIM project EuroClass, a search classification for trade marks, on 6 July 2012. With Croatia joining the project, the total number of participating European national offices has now risen to 27.

Trademark, as one of the intellectual property rights, serves to differentiate goods and services from those of potential competitors in the marketplace, so when filing an application for the registration of a trade mark, it is important to indicate very clearly for which goods and/or services trade mark will be used. For the purpose of classification of goods and services specially developed classification systems are used.  To make classification easier, OHIM (Office for harmonization in internal market) offers EuroClass, a useful tool to assist applicants when filing trade mark applications and when trying to organise goods and services into the correct classes.
This tool helps applicants with the classification of goods and services and allows comparison of the classification databases of the Participating Offices supplying data to EuroClass. When searching for a classification term in EuroClass, applicant will see in which Participating Office databases that term appears.

Lists of goods and services can be verified for acceptance by Participating Offices and, where no entry is found, it provides a list of similar terms in the classes searched. If a term from the OHIM database is selected to be included in a CTM application, it is guaranteed that it will be automatically accepted by OHIM.

The latest version of the EuroClass tool incorporates the functions of the now obsolete EuroAce and EuroNice applications.

For more information on EuroClass see the OHIM website:  http://oami.europa.eu/ec2/