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The Zest

Your Goods and Services List Decides What You Actually Own

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"What do I put in the goods and services section?" Treat it as the most important box on the application, because it sets the scope of what you own. A registration's legal presumptions, including your exclusive right to use the mark, attach to the goods and services listed in it. And once you file, that list can be clarified or narrowed, but never broadened. Anything outside it takes a new application.

Here's why the list carries so much weight, and how to write one that fits.

The list sets the scope

A registration on the Principal Register is evidence that the mark is valid, that you own it, and that you have the exclusive right to use it in commerce for the goods or services named in the certificate. The filing date works the same way. Once the mark registers, the filing date counts as nationwide constructive use, but only in connection with the goods or services in the registration. The USPTO's examination manual puts it plainly: the identification of goods and services defines the scope of the rights the application establishes.

The list also drives examination. When an examiner compares your application with an earlier registration, the comparison is based on the goods and services as written, not on what either business actually sells. If a listing has no limits on type, trade channels or customers, it's presumed to cover everything of that type, sold everywhere such goods are normally sold.

So the list works in two directions. It's what you can point to as yours, and it's what other filers get measured against.

Narrow is allowed, broader never

The rule is short. After filing, you may amend the identification "to clarify or limit, but not to broaden" it. The description as filed sets the outer limit for every later change, and once you've narrowed it, you can't expand it again.

The examination manual's own example shows how this works in practice. An application for hats can be amended to "hats, excluding baseball hats," because baseball hats are a kind of hat. What you can't do is add a term that isn't logically included in what you filed, or move from a specific term to a more general one.

That means growth needs a plan. Say you file for candles and later launch room sprays and reed diffusers. Those aren't candles, and the original application can't stretch to cover them. Expanding means a new application, with its own fee and its own, later filing date. If someone else files for something similar in between, they may be ahead of you for those new products.

Too broad is its own problem

The instinct is to list everything, just in case. It backfires in a few ways.

In a use-based application, every item on the list has to be in use on the filing date. In an intent-to-use application, you need a genuine, good-faith plan for every item. A list padded with products you don't sell and don't plan to sell doesn't meet either standard.

Vague wording causes trouble too. The description has to be specific, definite, clear, accurate and concise, using names people generally understand. The manual's examples include "blankets," which isn't acceptable without more detail because blankets can fall into several different classes. Catch-all phrases draw an office action asking you to narrow and specify.

The list follows you after registration as well. The maintenance filing due before the sixth anniversary of registration has to set out the listed goods and services on which the mark is still in use, and missing a maintenance filing gets the registration canceled.

Pre-approved descriptions versus writing your own

You have two ways to write the list. You can choose from the USPTO's list of pre-approved descriptions, which come with their classes already assigned, or you can draft your own wording.

The fees push toward the pre-approved list. Under the fee schedule that took effect January 18, 2025, the base application fee is $350 per class. Writing your own description instead adds a $200 surcharge per class. Long custom wording costs more again: past the first 1,000 characters, each additional 1,000 characters adds another $200 for that class. And an application that leaves out required information adds $100 per class. The full fee breakdown is here.

The pre-approved list doesn't fit every business, especially newer kinds of products and services. When nothing on it fits, paying for custom wording that accurately describes what you sell beats forcing your business into an entry that's wrong.

How to write a list that fits

Start with what you sell now, in plain words. Then add what you have a real plan to sell, and only that.

Sort it into classes. Goods and services never share a class, so a product brand that also runs workshops needs at least two. Each class adds $350 at minimum, so this is where the budget gets decided.

Use common names, not marketing language. "Scented candles" tells an examiner what the goods are. "Mood experiences" doesn't.

Search against the list you're actually filing. Whether a name is available depends on the goods and services you pair it with, and a clearance search before filing checks the name against what you'll claim, not in the abstract.

If you're drafting a goods and services list for a filing this year, you can see how the search and filing packages work on the services page, and the FAQs page answers most of what comes up before a first call.

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(No legal advice is given on the discovery call. It's a chance to tell me what you're building and hear how the process works.)

Sources

This article is general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

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