Vienna Classification
Updated 2026-08-13
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
The Vienna Classification, established under the World Intellectual Property Organization, organizes the figurative elements of trademarks into a hierarchy of categories, divisions, and sections, and assigns each mark a code based on what its image contains. The core proposition is that a shared coding scheme lets examiners and applicants search for visually similar marks across jurisdictions, since the same image can be described in the same terms regardless of language or legal system. The key qualification is that the scheme classifies figurative elements only, and it is separate from the Nice Classification, which covers the goods and services to which a mark applies.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Element coding: describe the mark by the figures it contains rather than by its words. - Cross-border search: use the shared codes to find similar marks in other jurisdictions. - Code boundary: keep the figurative codes separate from the goods-and-services classes.
Anchor fast decisions
Language and legal tradition differ across registries, so textual descriptions of marks cannot be compared directly. A fixed code for each figurative element removes that variability and makes similarity retrievable by machine as well as by examiner. Consistency in coding is what allows the same search to return comparable results in every member jurisdiction.
MINIMUM ACTION
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Source support: Explicit
- wipo.inthttps://www.wipo.int/en/web/classification-vienna/faqverified
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