Applying for a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is a great way to protect your growing business.
When you apply, you will need to know what international trademark class best suits your business.
This article will cover international Trademark Class 32, which protects businesses that sell beverages.
Registering a Class 32 Trademark
A trademark is a symbol, image, slogan, logo, etc. that establishes you as the original source of your good or service.
You can think of your trademark as a branding tool to help you set your good or service apart from your competition.
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) created the Nice Classification to categorize goods and services.
There are 45 classes in total, 34 classify goods and 11 classify services.
When you register a trademark with the USPTO, you gain protection from other companies in the same industry.
If you feel that someone is infringing on your trademark rights, you will have to prove that there has been a likelihood of confusion.
In order for there to be confusion that qualifies as infringement, there has to be the potential for your consumer to confuse your product with another product in your industry because of trademark similarity.
What is a Class 32 Trademark?
This class protects a broad range of non-alcoholic and low-alcohol content beverages.
Generally, this class covers different waters, beers, fruit and vegetable juices, soft drinks, and other miscellaneous beverages.
Waters
Different types of water are in this class.
These variations include preparations for making aerated water, aerated water, lithia water, mineral water, seltzer water, table waters, and soda water.
Beers
Although most alcoholic beverages are excluded from this class, beer and related products are the exceptions.
These items include barley wine, beer, beer wort, malt beer, and malt wort.
Juices and Other Fruit and Vegetable-Based Beverages
Fruit and vegetable juices are also in this class.
These include products such as non-alcoholic cider, fruit juice, non-alcoholic fruit nectars, lemonades, non-alcoholic fruit extract and juice, tomato juice, vegetable juices, smoothies, and sorbets.
Soft Drinks
Trademark Class 32 covers most forms of soft drinks as well.
This includes energy drinks, ginger ale, and all of the regular soft drinks you'd find in a supermarket.
Related Classes
While Class 32 protects most forms of beer, it does not protect beverages with higher alcohol contents. Wine and spirits instead go into Class 33.
In a similar manner, milk instead appears in Class 29, while coffee, hot cocoa, and tea all appear in Class 30.
Conclusion
Registering a trademark is a great way to protect your business, especially as you begin to expand.
Trademarks are an important part of creating a brand and building a consumer base that recognizes and is loyal to your products or services.
When you apply, you will list the international trademark class that best suits your business.
If you produce any number of non-alcoholic beverages or beer related products, Trademark Class 32 might be the right class for your application.
