As of 27 July 2020, the Intellectual Property Office of Saint Kitts and Nevis (IPOSKN) is part of
TMclass! The National Industrial Property Office of the Dominican Republic (ONAPI) also
joined on the same date.
TMclass is an online database developed and managed by the European Union Intellectual
Property Office (EUIPO) that assists persons desirous of registering trademarks by identifying
the class of goods or services that the proposed trademark would be registered in. All registered
trademarks must be associated with at least one of the forty-five class of goods and services and
legal protection will only extend to such class or classes. For example, if a person wanted to
register their trademark ,“Hungry Belly”, which they use in their food catering service and were
not sure which class of services applies to catering, then that person could go to TMclass
(http://euipo.europa.eu/ec2/ ), search for the term “catering services” and it will identify
acceptable terms and classes associated with that service that an applicant can include in their
application documents. This means that if the “Hungry Belly” trademark is registered in the
class that covers services providing food and drink (Class 43), then the owners of that trademark
can take legal action against any other catering service in St. Kitts and Nevis to stop them from
using a trademark that is identical or confusingly similar to “Hungry Belly”.
The IPOSKN is the first country in the CARICOM and the third in the CARIFORUM Region to
join TMclass. The Cuban Intellectual Property Office was the first. This means that they have
agreed to use and accept a list of common terms between the harmonised database of goods and
services (HDB) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s Madrid Goods and Services
(MGS). The addition of IPOSKN and ONAPI in TMclass brings the total number of
participating national and regional IP Offices, to 80.
On this occasion, the Acting Registrar of the IPOSKN, Ms. Jihan Williams, expressed her
particular gratitude to the team members of the International Cooperation and Legal Affairs
Department of the EUIPO whose support facilitated the smooth launch of this initiative. She
said, “The decision to join TMclass was easy for our Office as it fully aligns with our ongoing
efforts to increase stakeholder satisfaction and the level of ease of doing business with our
Office. TMclass specifically provides applicants with a greater level of predictability in the
trademark application process and affords them the opportunity to reduce or eliminate
misclassification and improper descriptions of goods and services, which accounts for a
significant portion of processing delays.”
The decision by IPOSKN to join TMclass is a concrete result of the CARIFORUM Intellectual
Property and Innovation Project funded under the 11th European Development Fund and
implemented by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).
For more information on registering trademarks and intellectual property in St. Kitts and Nevis,
please visit www.ipo.gov.kn or our Facebook page at the Intellectual Property Office of St. Kitts
and Nevis.
