A brief introduction to the contents of the Nice Treaty, a brief introduction to the Nice Agreement

The Nice Agreement establishes an international classification of goods and services for the purpose of trademark registration, including 34 classes of goods and 11 classes of services, which are further divided into more than 10,000 sub-headings.

The Nice Agreement is a multi-state international convention, the full name of which is the Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks. The agreement was signed on 15 June 1957 in the southern French city of Nice and entered into force on 8 April 1961. The number of member states of the Nice Agreement has now grown to 65.

My country joined the Nice Union on 9 August 1994. The purpose of the Nice Agreement is to establish a common system of international classification of goods and services for the purposes of the registration of marks and to ensure its implementation. At present, the international classification includes a total of 45 categories, including 34 categories of goods and 11 categories of services, including more than 10,000 goods and services.

Generally speaking, the goods and services that the applicant needs to fill in are among them. It is used not only by all Member States of the Nice Union, but also by non-Member States of the Nice Union. The difference was that members of the Nice Union could participate in the revision of the Classification, while non-Member States were not.

At present, more than 130 countries and regions in the world have adopted this classification table. Since November 1, 1988, China has adopted the international classification, which has greatly facilitated trademark applicants, more standardized the management of trademark authorities, and strengthened the connection between international trademark affairs. In particular, since China's accession to the Nice Agreement in 1994, we have actively participated in the revision and improvement of the Nice Classification, and have added a number of commodities with Chinese characteristics to the Nice Classification.

The draft Treaty of Nice is a document based on the EU's Treaty of Helsinki, which has been completely revised. The draft deals with various issues, including the construction of European integration and the process of eastward expansion. On the issue of institutional reform, the draft confirms the principle of "strengthening cooperation mechanisms" within the EU; In terms of the composition of the European Commission and the allocation of the number of members, it is clarified that after the EU reaches 27 or more members, the European Commission can only set a provision of fewer than 27 members; With regard to the distribution of voting votes within the Council of the European Union, a provision has been made on the distribution of voting votes basically according to the population of the member states, and the scope of voting proposals using the "effective majority system" has been expanded to more than 50 areas in order to improve the efficiency of EU decision-making.

In addition, the draft Nice Treaty establishes the number of seats that each country will occupy in the European Parliament following the expansion of the EU to 27 member states, making arrangements for the admission of new member States in the future.

Ireland's refusal to ratify the Treaty in a referendum on 8 June 2001 had created uncertainty for the prospects of the Treaty of Nice, but the overwhelming majority of the European Union had maintained their intention to ratify the Treaty, as had been the case at several EU summits since Ireland's veto. According to the analysis, although individual States may adopt reservations to individual aspects of the treaty, which may lead to minor amendments to the treaty, there should be no major changes to the treaty as a whole.

In November 2002, Ireland ratified the Treaty of Nice in a referendum. On 1 February 2003, the Treaty of Nice entered into force. The entry into force of the Treaty of Nice also indicates that the process of eastward expansion of the European Union is about to be officially launched.

The Nice Agreement, which stands for the Nice Agreement concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks, entered into force in 1961 and currently has more than 50 member states and hundreds of countries using the Classification of Goods for the purposes of the International Trademark Registration of the Agreement. In 1988, China began to adopt the International Classification of Goods and Services for the purposes of trademark registration, and joined the Agreement in 1994.