Meeting of the Classification Working Group: Trademarks Section, organized by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), took place on October 3-4, 2024, in Alicante, Spain.

The event brought together experts from the intellectual property offices of EU Member States, candidate countries as well as representatives of international intellectual property associations and organizations to discuss and work on improving trademark classification systems.

From the Republic of Moldova, the event was attended by: Victoria Pulbere, deputy head, Trademarks and Industrial Design Department, present in the meeting room at the EUIPO headquarters and online Tatiana Rusu, head, National Trademarks Division, Trademarks and Industrial Design Department, AGEPI.

The meeting of the Classification Working Group: Trademarks Section, is the meeting with reference to the classification of goods and services for the purpose of trademark registration, the main purpose being to ensure a uniform and precise classification, thus facilitating the process of registration and protection of trademarks at national and international level.

The proposals for revising and updating the Nice Classification, a system used internationally to standardize the categories of goods and services, were discussed during the session. Including, examples of the application of similar terms from the Nice Classification in practice and updates of the taxonomies that are made in accordance with the recent changes in the Nice Classification were presented.

Also during the session, a practical classification workshop was organized, where the representatives had the opportunity to share the experiences and challenges encountered in the classification of some goods and services, as well as to come up with some proposals to optimize the classification.

The topic of artificial intelligence was on the agenda of the session in the context of exploring new technologies to automate and improve the classification process. Including, the implementation of these technologies in existing systems and how they could improve the classification process and reduce errors were discussed.

Participation in this event underlines the commitment of the Republic of Moldova to align with international standards and to improve its own practices in the field of classification of goods and services.

In the context of filing applications for trademark registration, we recommend the use of the TMclass tool (developed by EUIPO) which facilitates the search and classification of goods and services needed to apply for trademark protection, ensuring a correct alignment with the classification databases of the participating offices.