Trademark Classes
Trademark Class for Clothing Brand
Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Clothing is Class 25. The official heading is clothing, footwear and headgear, so garments, shoes and hats all sit in the same class. If you are launching an apparel label and want one number, that is the number.
Class 25 is rarely the whole answer, though. Most clothing brands touch two or three classes without realising it, and the gaps usually appear in accessories, fabric and retail.
What Class 25 covers
Class 25 covers finished articles worn by people: shirts, trousers, dresses, sarees, kurtas, jackets, innerwear, socks, uniforms, swimwear, shoes, sandals, boots, caps, hats and turbans.
The common thread is that the item is a finished garment or article of wear. How it is made, and what it is made from, does not change the class. A leather jacket, a cotton shirt and a synthetic raincoat are all Class 25.
Footwear and headgear are also Class 25
Shoes do not have a separate class. Sports shoes, formal shoes, sandals, chappals, boots and slippers are all Class 25, and so are caps, hats and other headgear.
Two exceptions are worth knowing. Protective helmets and protective clothing made for accident prevention are Class 9, not 25, because they are classified as safety equipment rather than as wear. And specialised sporting articles such as shin guards belong in Class 28 even though they are worn.
The classes clothing brands most often miss
Class 24 is textiles — fabric by the metre, bed linen, curtains, towels. This is the most frequent mix-up. Cloth is Class 24; a garment made from it is Class 25. A brand selling both fabric and stitched wear needs both.
Class 18 is leather goods, bags, luggage, wallets and umbrellas. A leather handbag is Class 18 while a leather jacket is Class 25, which surprises most people. Any apparel label with a bag line needs 18.
Class 14 is jewellery and watches. Class 9 covers sunglasses and spectacle frames. Both are standard accessory extensions for a fashion brand.
Class 26 is trimmings and haberdashery — lace, embroidery, ribbons, buttons, hooks and zips. Relevant if you sell components rather than finished wear.
Class 23 is yarns and threads, which matters for mills and suppliers upstream of a garment brand.
If you run a store rather than a label
Selling other people's clothing is a retail service, and retail services are Class 35, not Class 25. A multi-brand boutique or a fashion marketplace that carries third-party labels is operating in Class 35.
If you do both — you stock other brands and also sell your own label — you need Class 25 for your garments and Class 35 for the store. Filing only in 35 protects the shop name while leaving your own product line open for someone else to register.
Alteration and tailoring carried out on customers' garments is treatment of materials, which falls in Class 40.
What a typical apparel filing looks like
A straightforward clothing label that sells only garments files in Class 25 alone. That is a complete answer for a lot of businesses and there is no benefit in padding it.
A label that has grown into accessories usually ends up in 25 with 18 for bags, and often 14 or 9 for jewellery or eyewear. A brand that sells through its own stores adds 35. A manufacturer that also supplies fabric adds 24.
Each class is examined on its own and carries its own government fee, so the question is not how many classes are arguable but which ones carry real risk if a competitor registered your name there first.
Before you file
Class 25 is one of the most crowded classes on the Indian register, which makes a proper search more important here than in most classes. Similar marks for clothing are routinely objected to under the relative grounds in section 11, and a name that looks free on a casual web search may already sit on the register.
Check your specific items in the trademark class finder before filing, particularly if your range includes anything beyond plain garments.