How to draft a trademark goods and services specification for Germany or the EU

For a first filing, the useful question is: what will the mark actually be used for in your startup, and which goods or services need to sit inside the filing from the start? The German Patent and Trade Mark Office states that each mark is registered for specific goods and services, and that this determines the scope of protection. It also uses the Nice Classification, which has 45 classes, as the framework for sorting those goods and services.

That means the drafting task is not to collect every possible related term. It is to translate the current business model into the goods and services you need to cover, class by class. If your team is unsure whether a term belongs in one place or another, the class structure is the first filter for narrowing the list before you polish the wording.

For a German filing, the DPMA also offers a recommended list for classifying goods and services. That gives you a starting point for selecting terms that fit the classification system instead of inventing a fresh description from scratch.

Once you have a draft list, the next step is to check whether the terms are acceptable in the relevant system. EUIPO’s TMclass is an official tool for searching, classifying, and verifying goods-and-services terms for trademark applications. It also supports term translation and checks against a harmonised database, which is useful when you want the German and EU wording to stay aligned.

That matters because the same commercial idea can be described in more than one way, but not every description is equally clear or equally well fitted to the filing process. TMclass and EUIPO’s Goods and services editor let applicants check terms for acceptance and, if needed, submit their own list of goods and services. In practice, this is the point where you can test whether the wording is specific enough to be usable and consistent enough to rely on across filings.

A practical approach is to draft the list in one language, verify the terms, and then compare the result with the version you plan to file in Germany or with the EU application. This reduces the risk that the same business activity is described one way in one filing and differently in another.

The decision is not simply whether to make the specification narrow or wide. It is whether each term reflects a real business need. A broader list can capture more of what the company does or plans to do, but it also increases the chance that the filing becomes harder to read, harder to keep consistent, or less obviously tied to the actual business focus.

A narrower list can be easier to manage, but only if it still covers the goods and services that matter for the current filing. The specification should therefore follow a simple internal check: does this term describe what the startup offers now or is preparing to offer through the filing, and does it fit the relevant class? If the answer is unclear, the term may be too vague for the drafting stage or too detached from the business model to be useful.

This is especially relevant for teams filing both in Germany and at EU level. The more the wording diverges between filings, the harder it becomes to keep the portfolio coherent. Using the same classification logic and checking the wording through the official tools helps keep the specification aligned without forcing identical language where the filing systems allow some flexibility.

For an in-house team, the practical challenge is often not writing one good list, but writing two lists that describe the same business in a consistent way. The DPMA materials show that goods and services are tied to the class structure and the scope of protection, while EUIPO’s filing guidance makes clear that classification and the goods-services wording are part of the filing workflow itself for EU trade marks. That means the wording should be checked as part of the filing decision, not left as an afterthought.

Where the business is the same, the safer drafting habit is to compare the German and EU versions term by term and check whether the same commercial activity is being described with the same level of precision. A mismatch can come from a small wording difference, not from a different strategy. The official tools are useful here because they help you verify whether the language you want is recognized and whether it matches the harmonized terminology used in the system.

Hypothetical example: if the startup offers a software-based service and also plans a separate line of physical products, the filing list should separate those items clearly rather than grouping them into one broad phrase. That way, the specification reflects the actual business structure instead of leaving the reader to infer what is meant. The general point is to make the wording match the filing strategy, class by class, in both systems.

One point that is easy to overlook in an early filing workflow is that DPMA treats classification of goods and services separately from the classification of images or figurative elements. For a startup preparing its first filing, that is a useful reminder that the mark itself and the scope of protection are not drafted in the same way as the list of goods and services.

In other words, do not let the visual design of the mark distract from the specification. The filing needs both a clear sign and a clear description of what the sign covers. If the brand includes a logo or other figurative element, the relevant classification question for the filing still remains the goods-and-services wording, with the image classification handled separately where relevant.

For an in-house team, the practical benefit of keeping these parts distinct is simple: it reduces the chance of mixing design choices with scope choices. That makes the filing easier to review internally and easier to compare later if the company files in both Germany and the EU.

The most useful internal process is a short review before filing: confirm what the startup actually sells or offers, place each item into the correct class, verify the wording in TMclass or the Goods and services editor, and then compare the German and EU versions for consistency. That workflow follows the way the official systems are set up, and it keeps the specification tied to the filing rather than to a later clean-up exercise.

If you need one decision rule, use this: draft the specification around the business you can describe clearly today, verify the terms with the official tools, and then align the wording across jurisdictions where the underlying business is the same. That gives you a filing list that is concrete enough to work and restrained enough to remain readable.

This article provides general information and is not legal advice.