Choosing the right class for your product

Common products map to these classes

The mappings below are common Nice-class starting points, not individualized classification advice. The exact product, delivery model, selected item wording, and China similarity groups can change the appropriate scope.

Apparel, footwear, hats

Class 25. Clothing, footwear, and headwear for people.

Consumer electronics, gadgets, downloadable apps

Class 9. Phones, audio gear, recorded and downloadable media, and downloadable software all sit here.

Cosmetics, skincare, perfume, soap

Class 3. Non-medicated cosmetics, perfumery, and cleaning preparations.

Packaged food

Class 29 or 30, depending on the food. Meat, fish, dairy, and preserved or frozen fruit and vegetables are 29. Coffee, tea, bread, pastry, sauces, and spices are 30. Many food brands need both.

Dietary supplements, vitamins

Class 5. Supplements for humans sit with pharmaceutical and dietetic goods.

Furniture

Class 20. Furniture, mirrors, and picture frames.

Jewelry and watches

Class 14. Precious metals, jewelry, clocks, and watches.

Toys, games, sporting goods

Class 28. Toys, games apparatus, and sports equipment.

Software and SaaS

Class 9, class 42, or both. Software you download or sell as a packaged product is a good in 9. Software delivered as a service (SaaS) is a service in 42. Many software businesses file both.

Retail, marketing, advertising services

Class 35. Retail and online store services, advertising, marketing, and business management are services, not goods.

Worked examples show how the class count adds up

Walk through two example brands to see how the count adds up. The classes below are the likely fit for each, not a settled answer; borderline goods are a judgment call.

A skincare brand that also sells branded reusable bottles. The creams and serums are cosmetics, so class 3. The bottles, if sold as merchandise, fall under household containers in class 21, a separate class. If the brand also runs its own online shop as a named service, that is retail in class 35. The brand must decide which activities the registration needs to cover.

A fitness app sold as a subscription. The downloadable app is a good in class 9. The subscription service running in the cloud is SaaS in class 42. Branded water bottles or apparel sold alongside would add class 21 or class 25. A focused filing might therefore cover classes 9 and 42, while merchandise would add different classes.

In both cases the question is not "what is my product called" but "what goods and services do I want a registration to cover." That choice sets your class count, and your class count sets your price.

China splits each class into subclasses

Here is the part that surprises overseas filers. China uses the Nice class numbers, but CNIPA adds its own subclass layer underneath each class. Every class is divided into subclasses shown as four-digit codes, where the first two digits are the class and the last two are the subclass.

This matters because CNIPA generally treats goods in the same subclass as similar and goods in different subclasses as not similar, even when both sit in the same Nice class, with some exceptions. So two products that share class 25 can fall in different subclasses and receive different scope of protection. Picking the right items within a class is not a formality. It shapes what your registration actually blocks.

Move from examples to exact items

Start with the goods and services the business sells or plans to sell. Use the examples to find likely classes, then confirm the exact filing items and similarity groups. Add service classes such as retail or SaaS only when those services are part of the protection the business needs.