NICE class 35: why retail services don't protect your product

A Tashkent clothing brand registered a word mark and assumed the matter was closed. The application listed a single class — class 35, "retail of clothing" — on the advice of a friend who runs a shop. Eighteen months later, T-shirts and hoodies with the same name appeared on Yandex Market and in two physical stores: someone else's manufacturing, the same spelling, the same look. The brand's lawyer came to us with the application and the registration certificate, expecting a quick infringement claim. The first question he heard was: "And in which class is the product itself — the clothing — registered?" The answer was: none. The mark protected the service of selling, not the T-shirt. This is the most common and most expensive mistake in choosing NICE classes.

Class 35 protects the trade, not the goods

The Nice Classification of goods and services (NICE, now in its 12th edition) divides everything into 45 classes: classes 1 through 34 are goods, 35 through 45 are services. When you register a mark you aren't choosing "a line of business" in the abstract — you're choosing specific cells in this table. And protection works strictly inside the cells you picked.

Class 35 is the most misunderstood of them all. Formally it covers "advertising; business management, organization and administration; office functions." It also includes what practitioners call "retail and wholesale services" — the bringing together of a variety of goods so a customer can conveniently view and buy them. The key word is service. Class 35 protects your selling activity: the shopfront, the name of a retail chain, a marketplace. It does not protect the physical object on the shelf.

This is not legal hair-splitting — it's the line the front runs along in a real dispute. When a competitor manufactures and sells T-shirts under your name, they use the sign on goods, and the goods "clothing" live in class 25. Your class 35 registration is about a retail service; their T-shirt is a product. Formally there's no overlap, and the infringer builds their defence on exactly that: "I don't provide retail services under your mark, I make clothing — and clothing is something you never registered."

What the trap looks like in practice

The "class 35 instead of the goods class" trap repeats in three typical scenarios, and each one costs real money.

The clothing brand that filed only the trade

This is the story from the opening. A maker or seller of clothing thinks in terms of "I trade" and files class 35. The right floor for them is class 25 (clothing, footwear, headgear), because that's the goods the mark sits on. Class 35 is worth adding on top if the brand runs its own retail chain or marketplace under the same name — but as a supplement to class 25, not a replacement for it. A mark in class 35 only leaves class 25 fully open: anyone can register your own name for clothing and, in the worst case, turn a claim around against you.

The SaaS startup on the class 9 / class 42 boundary

An IT team is certain its product is "software" and files class 9 (which covers downloadable software and electronics). But if the product is a cloud service accessed online with no download, its home is class 42 (software development and the provision of online, non-downloadable software as a service — SaaS). A downloadable mobile app pulls in class 9; a subscription web platform, class 42; and most modern products have both. An application in class 9 alone leaves the service core of the product exposed; class 42 alone doesn't cover the app in the stores. We walked through this boundary in detail in the piece on protecting software.

The restaurant that grew a product line

A café files class 43 (services for providing food and drink, restaurants, hotels) — and for the venue itself that's correct. A year later the café launches a signature bottled sauce on supermarket shelves. The sauce is a product, and it lives in class 30 (or 29, depending on its composition), not in 43. A mark filed in class 43 only protects the restaurant's sign, not the bottle of sauce with the same name. A rival manufacturer can put out a sauce under your name, and there's no formal breach of your restaurant registration.

The common denominator in all three cases is the same: a service class describes what you do, a goods class describes what you sell. They are different things, and the mark protects exactly what was filed.

How many classes you need: a Goldilocks problem

If the first mistake is taking too few classes and leaving gaps, the second — its mirror image — is taking too many "just in case." Both are expensive, just in different ways.

Each class in the application is a separate fee. In Uzbekistan the state fee is calculated per NICE class and runs to roughly 2 to 5 base calculation values (BCV) per class (the exact figure is set by a Cabinet of Ministers resolution and revised periodically, so calculate against the current BCV on the filing date). Ten classes "in reserve" means a tenfold fee for protection you may never use.

But the real cost of surplus classes isn't the fee. A mark left unused in some class for three consecutive years becomes vulnerable: an interested party may demand early termination of protection precisely in the unused classes. So a class "reserved for the future" is not insurance — it's an obligation with a three-year fuse. A competitor who wants your class 30 will calmly wait out three years of your inactivity in it, file for termination, attach evidence of non-use, and take the class for themselves, leaving you only the classes where the mark actually works.

That's the fork. Too few classes, and the core of the brand is open to copies, like the T-shirts in the first story. Too many, and you pay for ballast that can also be stripped away after three years. The Goldilocks point isn't "more for safety" or "the minimum to save money" — it's a precise list of what you sell and do right now, plus a narrow, realistic expansion horizon.

Building a class list with no gaps

The working logic for choosing classes fits into five steps.

1. Write down everything you sell as a physical or digital product. These goods classes (1–34) are the non-negotiable base. A clothing brand — class 25; a drinks maker — class 32; a downloadable-app developer — class 9. Without them there's no protection for the product.
2. Write down everything you do as a service. Retail, advertising, consulting, food service, an IT service — these are classes 35–45. This is where class 35 lives: for your own retail chain, marketplace, or ad agency.
3. Don't substitute the goods with the service. If you both make a product and sell it, you need both classes — the goods class and class 35, not one instead of the other. This is the core antidote to the trap.
4. Add adjacent classes a copyist would naturally reach for. A drinks maker should think about packaging and related goods; a restaurant, about packaged products if a retail line is planned. But add them deliberately, against a specific risk, not as a blanket "everything at once" list.
5. The expansion horizon is three years, not ten. A class you'll genuinely enter in the next couple of years is reasonable to add. A "someday later" class is exactly the ballast with the three-year fuse.

Before filing, check the chosen classes against the register: is your sign already taken in the class you need by someone earlier? How to do that yourself and what to look for is in the guide on checking a mark before filing. And the base map of the classes themselves is in our overview of NICE classes.

Uzbekistan allows a multi-class application — one mark can be filed across several classes in a single application instead of one application per class. That's convenient, but it doesn't suspend the discipline: every class on the list must answer the question "what exactly am I protecting with this," not "it might come in handy."

In short

• Class 35 protects the service of trade and advertising, not the product on the shelf.
• A clothing brand must file class 25; class 35 only as a supplement, not a replacement.
• SaaS lives in class 42, a downloadable app in class 9; you often need both.
• A restaurant is class 43; a packaged product under the same name is class 29 or 30.
• Surplus classes cost fees (2–5 BCV per class) and are vulnerable to termination after 3 years.
• The right list is what you sell and do now, plus a three-year horizon.

Frequently asked questions

What does NICE class 35 cover in plain terms? Advertising, business management and administration, office functions, and retail and wholesale services. These are services: a shop's sign, a retail-chain brand, an ad agency, a marketplace. The product being sold is not in class 35 — it lives in one of the goods classes, 1 through 34.

Is class 35 enough if I just sell products? No, if your mark is on the product. Class 35 will protect your trading activity, but not the product itself. A copyist who manufactures and sells the product under your name uses the mark in a goods class — and you never filed that one. You need a goods class plus, optionally, class 35 on top.

What's the difference between class 9 and class 42 for an IT product? Class 9 is downloadable software and electronics (a mobile app, an installed program). Class 42 is software development and the provision of online software as a service with no download (cloud SaaS). Many products have both an app and a web service — then you need both classes.

Can one mark be filed across several classes at once? Yes. Uzbekistan allows a multi-class application: a single sign is filed across the classes you need within one application. The fee is still calculated per class.

How much does each additional class cost? The state fee is calculated per NICE class — roughly 2 to 5 base calculation values (BCV) per class. The exact amount is set by a Cabinet of Ministers resolution and changes periodically, so calculate against the current BCV on the filing date.

Is it risky to register classes "for the future"? Yes, if there's no real use in them. A mark unused in a class for three consecutive years can be terminated early at the demand of an interested party, precisely in those classes. A "reserved" class is not insurance — it's a vulnerability with a three-year clock.

How do I work out which classes my business actually needs? List separately everything you sell as a product (classes 1–34) and everything you do as a service (classes 35–45). Add adjacent classes against specific copying risks and a realistic two-to-three-year expansion horizon. If you're unsure of the wording of the list — that's the case where one wrong word opens a gap in the protection.

Class 35 is not "the universal class for anyone who trades." It's a class about the service of selling, and it protects exactly that. A brand that filed only class 35 has protected its shop sign and left unprotected the thing the shop exists for — the product itself. Build the list backwards: not "what business am I in," but "what exactly could a competitor copy if I don't file it." We handle class selection and application preparation end to end — and we start with exactly that question.