ASEAN Consultation on TM Classification

An ASEAN Consultation Meeting on Trade Mark Classification was held in Singapore from 24 to 26 June 2013. The meeting was attended by government representatives from all ten ASEAN Member States (AMS) and EUIPO.

During the course of the meeting, recent trends in trade mark classification at the international level were introduced, along with latest news regarding the EU harmonized database and the taxonomy initiative.

The meeting addressed the ECAP III initiative concerning the development of an ASEAN database of the terms accepted by the participating ASEAN IP Offices to identify goods and services for the purposes of the registration of trade marks. The Meeting examined the objectives of establishing an ASEAN TM Classification Tool, allowing access to the ASEAN database and a development plan was established. The Meeting agreed on the lists of terms that could constitute the initial content of this database, comprising all the terms contained in the Alphabetical List of the Nice Classification plus additional terms accepted both by WIPO and other major trade mark offices, as well as additional terms of particular interest to the ASEAN countries, in particular the ASEAN ethnic list of goods and services. The experts also agreed on further steps for the development of such database.