Trademark Class 25: Clothing
Clothing, footwear and headwear — one of the most crowded registers of all.
What class 25 covers
Class 25 is one of the 45 international classes used by the USPTO and most trademark offices worldwide, under the Nice Classification. Classes 1 to 34 cover goods — physical products — and classes 35 to 45 cover services. Class 25 is a goods class.
You register a mark for particular goods or services, not in the abstract. That is why the same word can be owned by unrelated businesses in different classes, and why picking the right class matters as much as picking the right name.
Typically included in class 25
- Shirts, trousers, dresses and outerwear
- Footwear of all kinds
- Hats and caps
- Activewear and athleisure
- Underwear and hosiery
- Uniforms and workwear
- Swimwear
Business types that usually file here
- Apparel brands
- Footwear companies
- Streetwear labels
- Athletic wear brands
- Print-on-demand shops
- Boutique clothing lines
- Uniform suppliers
Notable brands operating in class 25
Companies whose goods or services fall wholly or partly within this class. This is a list of well-known names in the space, not a ranking — there is no authoritative public measure of trademark "size", and most of these businesses hold registrations across several classes rather than this one alone.
- Nike
- Adidas
- Lululemon
- VF Corporation
- Levi Strauss
- Ralph Lauren
- PVH
- Hanesbrands
- Under Armour
- Skechers
- Crocs
- Deckers
- Columbia Sportswear
- Gap
- Abercrombie & Fitch
- American Eagle
- Urban Outfitters
- Carhartt
- Patagonia
- The North Face
- New Balance
- Puma
- Uniqlo
- Zara
- H&M
Choosing the right class
Three mistakes cost applicants the most in this area:
- Filing in too few classes. If you sell a product and also provide a service around it, that is often two classes. Registering only one leaves the other unprotected.
- Filing in too many. Each class costs a separate fee, and the USPTO expects you to be using the mark, or to have a genuine intent to use it, for everything you list.
- Ignoring related classes. Examiners routinely treat certain classes as related — clothing and clothing retail, for instance, or food products and restaurant services. A conflict in a related class can block you just as effectively as one in your own.
Our search checks related classes automatically, so a conflict in an adjacent class shows up rather than being silently ignored.