Could a trademark be protected in a total way, for all the products and services?
At the time of registering a trademark, the products and services for which it will be used must be precisely stated, as the protection granted by the law will regards solely the sectors indicated in the registration act.
The products and services to choose from are many but for legal purposes they have been divided into 45 classes/groups, where many items are included. In order to correctly select the fields, it is necessary to see the complete list of products and services, available to the public, to be found in the offices of the Chamber of Commerce. However it is not impossible to protect a mark in a total manner; to do this you need to file an application including all 45 classes and consequently the fee payment for these.
But rarely there is a deposit so wide and so general for two reasons. First of all, the problem of costs, as if the national trademark is also to be extended overseas, the expenses would be considerably multiplied because of the excessive number of classes. Secondly, because the mark, if not used within 5 years from the deposit, it lapses for non use, totally or partially, for those fields not looked after by the holder, so the money spent would be totally lost. Therefore, before proceeding with such a big registration, it is advisable to properly evaluate the company prospects, the fields to consider and the potentials, in order to delimit the sectors where really we don’t want the mark copied.