The Locarno Agreement Establishing an International Classification for Industrial Designs, referred to as the Locarno Agreement, is one of the special agreements signed between the member states of the Paris Union. It was signed in Locarno on October 4, 1968 and entered into force in 1971.
It establishes a classification of industrial designs (the Locarno Classification). The competent offices of the contracting parties must indicate the major and minor classes of the goods adopting the designs in the official documents and any publications issued by them regarding the deposit or registration of industrial designs according to the classification.
The Locarno Agreement established the Union, which has an Assembly. Every country that is a member of the Union is a member of the Assembly. One of the most important tasks of the Assembly is to adopt the biennial program and budget of the Union.
The Locarno Agreement also established a Committee of Experts, represented by all members of the Union. The main task of the Committee is to regularly revise the classification. The participating countries of the Locarno Agreement form the Locarno Union, and a unified industrial design classification system is adopted in the countries of the Union. The executive body of the Union is the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization. In addition to the General Assembly, the Union also has a National Committee to regularly revise the international classification. The Locarno Classification has been revised several times by the Committee of Experts. The current version (the eleventh edition) incorporates all revisions made in October 2015 and before. The eleventh edition was published in June 2016 and entered into force on January 1, 2017. It replaces previous versions and contains 32 major classes and 219 minor classes, with instructions for use as appropriate. The alphabetical catalogue of goods contains 5,167 English entries, in which the major classes of goods are arranged in alphabetical order and in alphabetical order within each minor class.
Our country joined the agreement on June 17, 1996, and the agreement entered into force for our country on September 19, 1996.