Goods and Services Manual

From: Canadian Intellectual Property Office

CIPO's Goods and Services Manual ("the Manual") is a searchable database available on the CIPO website. It serves as a representative listing for specifying goods and services in trademark applications as well as identifying their corresponding Nice Class. The intended users of the Manual are trademark examiners, agents, applicants and owners.

Paragraph 30(2)(a) of the Trademarks Act states that an application for a trademark shall contain, "a statement in ordinary commercial terms of the specific goods or services in association with which the trademark has been used or is proposed to be used."

Section 29 of the Trademarks Regulations states that "the statement of the goods or services referred to in paragraph 30(2)(a) of the Act must describe each of those goods or services in a manner that identifies a specific good or service".

The Manual is a tool that provides examples of acceptable goods and services. Applicants will avoid objections raised pursuant to paragraph 30(2)(a) of the Trademarks Act and section 29 of the Regulations by selecting terms found in the Manual.

The Manual primarily comprises pre-approved terms deemed acceptable by CIPO. It also includes terms that are no longer acceptable by the Office without further specifying their context.

While the database is not meant to be exhaustive, every effort is made to frequently update its content to keep abreast of the evolving marketplace.

To assist you in properly identifying and classifying any goods and services, features have been added to the Manual to streamline the process of building a list and including it in the trademark application when it is filed online. If a particular good or service is not found in the Manual, a search can be conducted for similar goods or services to determine if they may be acceptable. Likewise, the Manual can be used to also determine what goods or services would be deemed acceptable for the purpose of grouping the goods or services according to the classes of the Nice Classification.

For additional information on the Nice Classification, please refer to the Nice Classification page.

Search Options

The Homepage of the Goods and Services Manual features the different search functions outlined below:

Keywords Search: provides the ability to conduct a basic and advanced search using keywords from the Manual.
Alphabetical Search: provides the ability to conduct a search by browsing terms in alphabetical order.
Nice Class Search: provides the ability to conduct a search by browsing terms based on the Nice classification.
Classify List: provides the ability to copy/paste or import a list of goods or services and reorganize them by Nice class if they are found in the Manual.

Search by keywords

The Keywords Search function is a basic and advanced feature that provides the ability to search specific terms from the Goods and Services Manual.

Type of Searched terms:

A Single Term is a single word such as "shoes" or "pillows".
A Phrase is a group of two words or more such as "athletic shoes" or "travel pillows."

When a search is conducted, the system will retrieve any searched words found in the goods, services, details and additional notes fields in English and French. No restriction to the Nice Classification or the source of the term will be performed.

The searched term will be highlighted in yellow under the "Term" column.

How to do a Basic Search

The Basic Search is conducted by entering the desired term(s) in the text field and clicking "Search". The search will retrieve any database entries that include the searched term(s) under the "Term" column.

For example, entering the word "cosmetic" in the text field will retrieve all terms which contain the word "cosmetic" in the "Term" column.

How to do an Advanced Search

The function of the Advanced Search option is to narrow an entry (term) search by providing a series of different filters. The Advanced Search is conducted by entering the desired search term(s) in the text field, while selecting and modifying the criteria shown and clicking "Search". The search will retrieve Manual entries which include the selected criteria. There is also the option to adjust and maintain these criteria throughout the search.

The arrow right beside the title Advanced Search is used to display and expand filters which may be used to refine search results.

Advanced Search Criteria

The system can conduct a search of entries using different approaches such as:

Effective Date on and after: the search is limited to the date that an entry was added on, or after a specified date in the Manual.
Effective Date before: the search is limited to the date before an entry was added to the Manual.
Category: allows searching for a good, a service or both.
Scope of searched words:
- Any words – find any of the words listed.
- All words – find all of the words listed.
- Phrase – find the group of words listed.
- Exact Match – find terms with the exact phrase listed.
- Starts with – find terms that start with the words listed.
- Ends with – find terms that ends with the words listed.
Nice Classification: displays the grouping of 34 classes of goods (classes 1 to 34) and 11 classes of services (classes 35 to 45). You can select more than one Nice class by simultaneously pressing the CTRL key on your keyboard and selecting additional numbers with your mouse.
Include terms from the following sources:
1. TM5:. Refers to CIPO's partnership with the TM5 Partners who maintain a list of identification of goods and services that if entered into an application for the registration of a trademark would be accepted by each of these partners.
2. CIPO: Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO)
3. WIPO: Terms originating from the Madrid Goods and Services Manager administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Truncation and Wildcard Searches

Wildcard Searches are not exact string matches, but are based on character pattern matching between the characters specified in a query and words in terms that contain those character patterns.

The search engine is designed to recognize the asterisk (*) and the question mark (?) as wildcard indicators. The wildcard search can only be used with the scope of searched words “Any words”, "All words", "Starts with", and "Ends with".

Single character wildcard

The single character wildcard search finds terms that match the search query with one character replaced. Substitute a letter with the question mark (?) for a single wildcard character.

For example, to match words with different spellings such as "organization" or "organisation", you can search: Organi?ation

Multiple character wildcard

The multiple character wildcard search matches zero or more characters. Substitute a letter or letters with the asterisk (*) pattern character for a sequence of zero or more characters.

For example, to search "pharmacy or pharmaceutical", you can search: Pharm*

Wildcards in multiple terms

Multiple character wildcard searches can be used in multiple search terms.

For example, to search "Canadian" or "Canada", you can search: Canad*

Wildcards in front of a character string

Wildcards can also be used in front of a character string.

For example, to search "international" or "national", you can search: *National

Upper Case / Lower Case, Accents and Special Characters

The search engine is case and accent insensitive. For example, a search for the word "ete" would find the words "été","été" or "ETE".

The search engine is programmed to ignore punctuation except for &, @, $, %, ^, <, +, #, | and ~. In such cases, punctuation is replaced by a space.

Browse alphabetically

The Alphabetical Search function searches by each letter of the alphabet. The alphabetical search is conducted by selecting a letter to find terms that start with that specific letter.

For example, the term "shoe" will be located under the "S" list. The term "apple" will be located under the "A" list.

The list will contain goods and services available under each letter of the alphabet.

In total, 26 lists of terms are available in alphabetical order based on the first letter of the goods or services.

Search by Nice Class

The Nice Class Search function is used to search by Nice class and class description. To browse by Nice class, select the particular class.

For example, selecting the NICE class 2 will generate a search for specific entries that fall under that specific class.

You can select more than one Nice class by simultaneously pressing the CTRL key on your keyboard and selecting additional numbers with your mouse.

The list will be separated by Nice Class number where classes 1 to 34 cover goods and 35 to 45 cover services.

Each number will list the expressions in alphabetical order by default.

In total, 45 classes of entries are available to search and view.

Classify your list of terms

The Classify List function is designed to assist in grouping and classifying an existing list of goods and services for the purpose of filing a revised application or reorganizing its existing statements to comply with the Nice Classification. This trial function will perform a search against the list of terms and is conducted by importing or copying/pasting the desired list in the text field and clicking "Submit". This tool also provides owners who have already registered a trademark with a feature to search their list of goods and services for the corresponding Nice Classes.

In order to retrieve positive results from this tool, you may have to re-organize your list of terms accordingly.

For goods, it is recommended to structure your list as follows:

Good example: pants; shoes; underwear
Poor example: clothing, namely, pants, shoes and underwear

For services, it is recommended to structure your list as follows:

Good example: retail sale of clothing; retail sale of audio equipment; retail sale of cosmetics
Poor example: retail sale of clothing, audio equipment and cosmetics

Search Processing Rules

Important

Even though your terms may be specifically described and in ordinary commercial terms, they may not be found in the Manual as listed.

Below are some processing rules that can be considered to assist you in organizing a list of terms to produce optimal results.

Punctuation: The separation of terms is key to identify entries that are specific and in ordinary commercial terms. Each term requires to be separated with a semi-colon (;), a comma (,) or vertical bar (|).
Statement number: The statement number must be removed before submitting your list for the classification search.
Capitalization: To normalize the words/expression searched, the lower-case and upper-case characters shall be disregarded.
Equivalence and Accent: The search will be accent insensitive. For example, a search for the word "ete" would find the words "Été", "été" or "ETE".
Stopwords: To optimize the results returned for entries found in the Manual, it is best to exclude certain words within your list. The use of indefinite terms - "Namely", "Consisting of" or "Specifically", "In the nature of" ,"Such as" ,"Comprising", "Containing", "In particular" ,"Particularly", "Featuring" must not be used.

Search Results

The search results area will display the entries that match your current search. For each entry, the following elements will be displayed:

Select

The "Select" column contains the option to select and/or unselect search terms to build your list of pre-approved terms.

Term

The "Term" column provides the identified term located in the Goods and Service Manual based on search entry.

Wording included in square brackets is informational in nature and typically includes wording of a good or service that is not identified in English or French, but may be considered to be an ordinary commercial term.

An icon may be displayed beside the entry. This icon indicates that additional information exists for this term. When a cursor is placed over the icon, you can click on it to reveal a pop-up window that will display the additional notes.

Status

The "status" column specifies the status of a search term, which includes Active, Retired, and Not found in the Manual.

Active — acceptable terms that do not need further specification.
Retired — terms that are no longer active as they are now considered to be unacceptable in the Goods and Services Manual. These will also include terms that are not acceptable without further specification unless the context serves to specify the term.

NICE Class

The "Nice Class" column indicates the specific international class assigned to particular goods or services. When a cursor is placed over the "Nice Class" column, you can click on the class number to reveal a pop-up window that will display the class heading under the Nice Agreement for that particular class. All pre-approved terms have been classed using the current 12th Edition of the Nice Classification.

Source

The "Source" column indicates where the term originates from.

TM5: Refers to CIPO's partnership with the TM5 Partners who maintain a list of identification of goods and services that if entered into an application for the registration of a trademark would be accepted by each of these partners.
CIPO: Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO).
WIPO: Terms originating from the Madrid Goods and Services Manager administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Effective Date

The "Effective Date" column sets forth the date on which a particular Good or Service term was added to the Manual.

You may request to view the translated terms (only available when searching by keywords):

Display English term only.
Display French term only.
Display both, English and French.

Results set features

Sort

You can click on some of the headers (term, status, category, Nice class, source, effective date) to sort the list by that column.

For example, to sort search results by the status of a term, the user can place the cursor over the "Status" column and click with the mouse.

The grey highlighted arrow indicates if the results are displayed in ascending or descending order according to the criteria of the listed column. Click the arrow to change between ascending or descending order.

Number of entries per page

You may also customize the number of results per page by selecting to display entries in increments of 25, 50, 100, 250, 500 or all entries. The default view will be 25 entries. A maximum of 1000 entries can be displayed per search results set.

Add term(s) to list

You can select entries to be added to your list of pre-approved terms by clicking on the checkbox and pressing the button "Add term(s) to your list".

Important: This function will only work when selecting entries per page.

My List

You can use the Manual to build your list of goods and services before you file your trademark application. The My List table contains the terms that the user has selected from any of the main search options (Keywords Search, Nice Class Search, Alphabetical Search and Classify List). The columns "Term", "Status" and "Actions" will be displayed to organize and modify "My List" accordingly.

The contents of My List will be displayed as follows, organized by Nice Class:

First Column — Term: The term(s) the user has entered from any of the main search options.
Second Column — Status: The status of the term(s) shown.
Third Column — Actions: The user has the option to click the information icon for additional information if applicable. The trash bin icon can be used to delete selected term(s).

The user also has the option to sort the results according to any of the search table criteria, by using the arrows beside search criteria at the top of the search table.

For example, to sort search results by status of term, the user can place the cursor over the "Status" column and click with the mouse.

Important: When no class has been found for your searched term, they will be listed under the class labeled "Unknown class".

Additional Options

Enter additional term to list: You can use this feature to search and add additional terms to "My List".
Export as: If you want to save your list, you must export it to be able to consult it at a later time or for future use. You may export "My List" in the following formats: XML, Excel, or PDF. You can then later import the exact set of entries exported into the trademarks eFiling system or the Manual if it was saved using the XML schema defined for this purpose.
Export to CIPO e-Filing: You can file for a trademark online using the trademarks e-filing system, which contains a link from the CIPO's pre-approved database of goods and services enabling you to export the entries selected and saved to this e-filing system.
Additional Notes: The user can click the information icon for additional information. These additional notes can provide useful information about a specific entry, such as classification guidance, specific uses or identify why an entry or statement is no longer valid.
Clear My List: The user has the ability to clear all or selected items from their saved list.
Print: The user has the ability to print their "My List" of terms.

FAQ

What are the benefits of using the Goods and Services Manual?

By selecting terms and expressions found in the Manual, applicants and their agents can be assured that their selection will be deemed acceptable under paragraph 30(2)(a) of the Trademarks Act and section 29 of the Trademarks Regulations. This means that an office action will not be issued in regards to the statement of goods and services when filing or amending a Canadian trademark application.

If terms or expressions are not found in the Manual, does it mean that they will not be accepted by CIPO?

Not necessarily. The Manual provides a representative listing of goods and services that has been pre-approved by CIPO. If specific goods or services are not found in the Manual, they can still be added to the "My List" of goods and services to be submitted to the Office. A trademark examiner will review this list to ensure that the terms or expressions are acceptable and are correctly grouped according to the classes of the Nice Classification. CIPO is regularly monitoring the frequency of use of expressions that are acceptable but not found in the database for possible future consideration.

Why are all the goods and services entries assigned a Nice Class?

As part of the legislative requirements, all goods and services must be grouped according to the classes of the Nice classification. Please review the Nice classification section of the Examination Manual for more information.

Can I integrate the Canadian listing into my database for direct search access?

Yes. A public API (application program interface) is available to directly access the data available in the Manual. For further information, please contact the Business Services section.

What is an XML format?

XML stands for an eXtensible Markup Language. XML is a W3C initiative that allows information and services to be encoded with meaningful structure and semantics that computers and humans can understand. XML is great for information exchange, and can easily be extended to include user-specified and industry-specified tags.

Where can I find a copy of the XML schema used in the Manual?

You may access the XML schema by contacting the Business Services section. It is really important that this structure be used if you choose to import your list of goods and services into the CIPO e-Filing system.

Disclaimer

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) makes every effort to ensure that the terms contained in the Goods and Services Manual have been correctly classified according to the most recent version of the Nice Classification. The listing of goods and services contained in the Goods and Services Manual is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather to provide statements of goods or services that will be accepted without the need for further specification.

CIPO does not warrant the accuracy of the information contained within this database as recent updates, corrections or changes may not be included at the time of the search. CIPO reserves the right to modify and update the Goods and Services Manual at any time and accepts no responsibility or liability with regard to the use of any information extracted from the Goods and Services Manual.

Terms of Use

The Goods and Services Manual is intended for use by the general public. Due to limitations of equipment and bandwidth, it is not intended to be a source for bulk downloads of pre-approved goods and services data. Bulk data can be accessible from CIPO by contacting the Business Services section.

Clients who, in effect, deny service to the general public by generating unusually high numbers (1000 or more) of daily database accesses may be denied access to the Manual server without further notice.

Goods and Services Manual — Main Features

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