Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus
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For a list of classes, see Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure (TMEP) chapter 1400 (7th ed. 2010). Fees also
are a function of the type of application form used. For more information on the trademarking process, see USPTO
2010a.
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An example is the mark “Nike” being registered in classes associated with (a) software, (b) golf equipment, and
(c) eyewear. See U.S. trademark registration numbers 3406594, 3389746, and 3081688, each by Nike, Inc.
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Another way to think about this is to consider the registration counts to be weighted by the number of classes. So, if
the mark for brand A is registered in a single class and the mark for brand B is registered in five classes, then, we
calculate total registrations = (classes per mark
brand i
* mark
brand i
) = (1*1) + (5*1) = 6.
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This trademark is serial number 76977931 and can be found by using the USPTO searchable trademark database at
tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=76977931.
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For example, the list of industries selected because of their trademark intensity, as described in the next section,
includes 55 industries. Had we calculated the intensities based on fractional trademark counts, the list would have
numbered 51 industries, with 49 industries appearing on both lists.
each “class” in which the goods or services associated with the trademark is classified.
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This
makes working with trademark registration data different from working with patent grant data.
Trademark application and maintenance fees are assessed on a per-class basis, and registration
holders may elect to renew their registrations with respect to some but not all classes. As a
result, holding a “multi-class” registration is practically equivalent to holding multiple
registrations, one for each class. Accordingly, in the foregoing analysis each class listed on a
registration was considered as the unit of analysis, creating a class-registration count. For
example, if one mark (or logo) is registered in three classes, then our input measure in the
analysis reflects three trademark registration counts, one for each class.
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In practice, the vast majority of trademark registrations are associated with a single class.
However, from 2000 to 2009, about 16 percent of trademarks were registered in more than one
class. About 10 percent were registered in two classes, while the remaining six percent were
registered in anywhere from three to 45 classes. As a result of this variation, the sum of
registration-class observations is somewhat greater than the sum of registrations.
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As an example of a firm that has chosen to register a trademark in multiple classes, consider
Whole Foods’ “365 Everyday Value” brand. Whole Foods protects the 365 Everyday Value
brand in 10 different trademark classes.
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The goods classes under which the 365 Everyday
Value logo is applied include processed foods (from frozen dinners to trail mix), staple foods
(cereal, tortilla chips, pasta sauce, cookies), as well as food storage containers, paper products
(paper towels and coffee filters), and cosmetics and cleaning preparations (laundry detergent,
shampoo, bath gels). In effect, these 10 classes are 10 distinct registrations, each of which can
be renewed, or not, separately.
The approach that we adopted for measuring trademark-intensive industries parallels, but differs
from, the approach employed when analyzing patents.
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For patents, each patent was counted
only once overall; for trademark measurements, each mark is counted once for each class in
which it belongs, potentially counting it more than once overall according to the number of
classes in which it is registered. Since it is not easy to ascertain which trademark class-
registrations are relatively more important, we used the best measure available, based on the