Legal help to add a class to your trade mark

This usually becomes relevant when your business starts offering goods or services outside the class covered by your existing registration or application. For example, a brand first used for clothing may later expand into cosmetics, software, or retail services. If the new activity sits in a different class, your current filing may not cover it. This service helps you check whether an added class is the right next step and deals with the legal work involved in making that extra class application.

Trade mark protection is tied to the classes you apply in, so class choice affects what your registration may actually cover. If a class is too narrow, you may leave part of your brand activity uncovered. If it is too broad or poorly matched, you can end up with avoidable filing costs or an application that does not reflect what you genuinely offer. We look at your goods or services, how they are described, and where the extra class fits before the application is lodged.

No. This service is for adding a class to an existing trade mark position, rather than starting a brand filing from scratch. In practice, that means the legal work is centred on whether your current mark should be extended to cover further goods or services and how that should be presented in the application. If you have not yet filed the trade mark at all, or if you are protecting a different brand, a separate registration service may be the better fit.

Usually, yes. IPONZ filing fees for the extra class are separate from our legal fee, and the total government cost depends on what is being filed. We will outline the expected filing charges before you proceed. The legal fee covers the work listed on this page, not third-party charges or later contested stages. It also does not include ongoing representation after filing, so if the matter becomes more involved, any additional legal work would be scoped and priced separately.

After filing, IPONZ will examine the application in the usual way and may accept it, raise questions, or issue concerns about the class wording or registrability. As part of this service, we can help with standard filing-stage queries and keep you updated on progress. If the matter develops into a more complex dispute, formal objection response, or ongoing representation requirement, that would be outside the fixed-fee. At that point, we can explain your options and quote for any extra work if needed.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Trade Mark Additional Class service, pricing starts from $200.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.