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hi everybody Aidan here with 180 loco in Colorado welcome back to all up in your business today's episode we're talking trademarks and specifically how to add a class of goods or services to your trademark after you've already got it registered so let's say you have a trademark when you applied for your trademark you were providing a specific type of service or you were selling a certain kind of good on your trademark application and your trademark registration it specifies that type of good or service that your trademark is used in connection with so let's say you started a clothing line and initially you were selling shirts and sweatshirts so your trademark registration is specific to shirts and sweatshirts but now you're selling shoes and hats and you're selling refrigerator magnets and cars very unlikely but hey it could happen so what do you do now that you're selling all these different types of things under that one trademark unfortunately the answer is that you can't really add classes to a trademark after has already been registered you can't go back in and amend the application and you can't you just can't add or remove really well no I guess you can remove but you can't add classes after the fact so what you have to do if you now need to expand the scope of your trademark registration is that you have to apply for the trademark registration again in those additional classes really you just have to go through the exact same process that you did the first time with these additional classes in order to have your trademark registered under all of the applicable classes what you can do if you are starting a business or if you're in business and you're trying to get a registered trademark you can put on the application a a million I mean infinite numbers of classes of goods and services it doesn't have to be just one and you don't have to be using all of them at once you can you some classes as current use and you can do some classes as intent to use so again let's go to our clothing line example if you're starting a clothing line just with t-shirts and sweatshirts but you envision down the line you'll one day want to make pants and sell hats and shoes and everything else on your one trademark application you can have current use for t-shirts and sweatshirts and intent to use a basis for all of those other goods that you will eventually be selling now you're gonna have to start selling those products within a certain time frame it's usually about three years that you can extend it up to before you have to prove to the trademark office that you are actually selling these goods now but if you go into it with the idea that you're gonna be adding these goods later on then you can always put those in the trademark application initially otherwise later on when you start doing different kinds of services or selling different kinds of goods really you just have to go back and file new applications for the trademark all over again in those classes that's all for this episode thank you all so much for watching I'm Aiden Durham and I'll see you next time
Thanks for your comment Cherie Cossano, have a nice day.
- Cindie Garick, Staff Member
hi everybody I'm trademark attorney Josh Durbin and welcome to episode 5 of ask a trademark attorney so this is the show right take questions that I get every day from clients and answer them for you here today's question is once I file my trademark application can I come back and add additional goods and services later on the answer is no once a trademark application is filed you may no longer add goods or services or additional classes to it if you're going to expand your product line your service offerings you would then need to file a brand-new application for the same trademark on the different goods and services that you're now planning to offer so one of the concerns that we get around this question as clients will say well I know today that I'm going to be a clothing brand but I think in five or ten years I might be a jewelry line I might even offer food products might be yoga mats so why don't I file for all those things now and the answer is because in order for your trademark to register you actually have to have sales of all the goods or services that you put into the application so you don't want to stuff your application with all the maybes you want to put things in your application you legitimately think you're going to bring into the marketplace in the next typically one to three years from the filing date of your application the largest companies in the world will file additional applications later on when their product or service lines expand it is extraordinarily common for a company to start in one corner and go out from there and they file additional trademark applications as they go so just don't look at a trademark as a singular event for your company a trademark should is a living breathing thing and you can continuously file new applications as new products and services are offered under your brand you
Thanks kopnui your participation is very much appreciated
- Cindie Garick
About the author
I've studied pedology at West Liberty University in West Liberty and I am an expert in scientific classification. I usually feel gloomy. My previous job was insurance adjuster I held this position for 14 years, I love talking about trapshooting and crafts. Huge fan of Andrew Cuomo I practice equestrian and collect plants.
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