Your application must include a list of all articles which you want to register your designs with. You must list the articles in the class or classes they fall into, and state the class numbers. Below is the general classification under the Locarno Classification (15th Edition) by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) which guides you to find out the classes that your articles fall into.

Locarno Classification List

The International Classification for Industrial Designs ("the Locarno Classification") published by the WIPO is the system adopted for classifying design articles. For details of the Locarno Classification, please refer to WIPO’s website at http://www.wipo.int/classifications/en.

The class and sub-class of the registered design records show the classification of the articles at the time of registration of the designs. They will not be re-classified in accordance with the latest edition of the Locarno Classification published by WIPO. The Locarno Classification is "solely of an administrative character"; it facilitates design searches and obviates substantial reclassification work when documents are exchanged at the international level.

According to the Locarno Classification, Class 32 sub-class 01 is the class to which the items “graphic symbols and logos, surface patterns, ornamentation” belong. Under section 2 of the Registered Designs Ordinance (Cap. 522), “design” is defined as “features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament applied to an article by any industrial process …” and “article” means "any article of manufacture and includes any part of an article if that part is made and sold separately".

Accordingly, if you wish to apply for registration of a design in respect of “graphic symbols and logos, surface patterns, ornamentation” (or any of the above items), you need to specify the article(s) to which the relevant Class 32 sub-class 01 items are to be applied and state the class and sub-class of the article(s) in accordance with the Locarno Classification. For example, if you wish to seek registration of a design in respect of an “ornamentation” and the ornamentation is to be applied to handbags, the article and the classification may be stated as “ornamentation for handbags” and “3-01” respectively in Application Form D1 instead of “ornamentation” and “32-01” respectively.

If you file an application for registration of design and wish to claim priority in your application based on a previous application for registration of the same design filed in a Paris Convention country or a World Trade Organization member, you are required to specify the article and the class in your application form as mentioned in the preceding paragraph even if such previous application is classified in Class 32 sub-class 01.

List of Classes and Sub-Classes