Summary of the Locarno Agreement Establishing an International Classification for Industrial Designs (1968)

The Agreement establishes a classification for industrial designs (the Locarno Classification). The competent offices of the contracting States must indicate in the official documents reflecting the deposit or registration of industrial designs the numbers of the classes and subclasses of the Classification into which the goods incorporating the designs belong. They must do the same in any publication which the offices issue in respect of the deposit or registration.

The Classification consists of a list of 32 classes and 219 subclasses and an alphabetical list of goods with indication of the class and subclass into which each product belongs. The latter comprises 7,024 items.

A Committee of Experts, on which all contracting States are represented, set up under the Agreement, is entrusted with the task of periodic revision of the Classification. The current edition is the ninth, which entered into force on January 1, 2009.

The Classification is applied by 49 States party to the Locarno Agreement. The Classification is also applied by the International Bureau of WIPO in the administration of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs (1925), by the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI), by the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), by the Benelux Organisation for Intellectual Property (BOIP) and by the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (OHIM) of the European Communities.

The Locarno Agreement created a Union, which has an Assembly. Every State member of the Union is a member of the Assembly.

Among the most important tasks of the Assembly is the adoption of the biennial program and budget of the Union.

The Locarno Agreement, concluded in 1968, was amended in 1979.

The Agreement  is open to States party to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1883). Instruments of ratification or accession must be deposited with the Director General of WIPO.