Answer
What goods, services and classes do I put down?
Lawyers call this: identification of goods and services
Short answer
List what you actually sell, in plain and specific terms, and only what you sell now or genuinely intend to sell. The class numbers follow from that description — they are a filing and fee convention. The identification defines the goods and services in the application and strongly shapes the scope of the registration.
Get it wrong in the broad direction and you pay for classes you cannot support and invite refusals you did not need. Get it wrong in the narrow direction and your registration does not cover the products you care about.
What changes the answer
- What you sell today
- The identification has to match reality when you file a use-based application, and match it when you file proof of use on an intent-to-use application.
- How wide your actual use is
- When use must be claimed, the mark has to be in use on the goods and services you keep in the application. The USPTO generally requires one specimen per class, not one for every listed item — but listing goods you are not using is how applications fail when the use claim has to be made.
- Who else is in the neighbourhood
- A broader description collides with more registrations. Narrowing the goods is one of the standard ways out of a likelihood-of-confusion refusal.
- That you cannot broaden it later
- An identification can be clarified or narrowed after filing. It cannot be expanded beyond its original scope. New goods mean a new application.
The rule
An application must identify the particular goods or services clearly and specifically, and they are grouped under the international classification for fee and search purposes. See U.S. Pat. & Trademark Off., Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure § 1402.01 (May 2026) [hereinafter TMEP].
The USPTO maintains an Acceptable Identification of Goods and Services Manual — the ID Manual — of pre-approved wordings. Using it is not required. An entry from it is accepted on its face; custom wording is examined and may need clarifying or amending.
Two consequences people miss. The identification sets the outer edge of the application permanently at the filing date, and everything after that can only cut inward. See TMEP § 1402.06. And where a use claim must be made, the mark has to be in use on everything kept under that basis — an intent-to-use applicant filing a statement of use must delete or divide out goods not yet in use. See TMEP §§ 901, 1109.
What the Board has done
Two decisions in this library, rewritten in plain English from the Board’s opinion.
HEALTHPLANS.COM was held generic for health insurance lead-generation services, but the Board overturned the same finding for the applicant’s advertising-management software, because that software helps insurers track and bill advertising rather than providing health plans. One term, two classes, two genericness results — the identification did it.
HOUSEBOAT BLOB was refused for inflatable water-launch pads on two grounds at once, one of them a conflict with a registered mark for giant inflatable floating air bags, because the goods and the trade channels overlapped.
The USPTO’s refusal of HEALTHPLANS.COM for health insurance lead-generation and advertising services (Class 35) was upheld because the Board found that consumers would…
Read the plain summary →In re Katch, LLC · 2019No later change on its docketRefusal affirmed on both groundsThe Board found HOUSEBOAT BLOB for inflatable water-launch float pads merely descriptive (each word keeps its ordinary meaning in combination) and separately too similar to…
Read the plain summary →In re Fat Boys Water Sports LLC · 2016No later change on its docketGo deeper
How related your goods are to someone else’s is the second du Pont factor and one of the two that decide most refusals. The guide walks it with the corpus underneath.
What to do next
Write your list before you look at the classes. Describe each product the way you would to a customer, then find the closest ID Manual wording for each. If nothing fits, custom wording is allowed and is often the right answer — expect the examining attorney to look at it and possibly ask for a change.
Then delete or divide out anything for which you will not be able to claim the required use truthfully. That line is where the money is saved.
Most owners selling one product line can write this themselves from the ID Manual. It is worth a lawyer’s time when the list runs across several classes, or when it will set the scope of a brand you plan to license or sell.
Attorney review is provided by Valet Law, PLLC, a law firm separate from Trademark Valet, LLC. Keep confidential facts out of public tools. Your first message to Valet Law should identify the parties and the general issue only. Wait until Valet Law confirms it can discuss the matter before sending confidential details.
Who checked this
Reviewed and approved by Brandon Leavitt on 2026-10-02.
General information about how trademark law works. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not make anyone your lawyer.