Nigeria uses the International Classification of Goods and
Services for its trade mark registration system. But there was a
time when it used the old British Classification system, a system
that consisted of 50 classes (all for goods). Although the Nigerian
Trade Marks Act 1990 does make provision for the reclassification
of old registrations, there are still many trade marks on the
register that were classified under the old system. So is there any
downside to having a registration that was classified under the old
classification system?
The recent Nigerian High Court decision in the case of
Aventisub LLC (formerly Aventis Holdings Inc) v Macleod’s
Pharmaceuticals Limited, 12 October 2018 is interesting. What
happened here was that in 2014 MacLeod’s filed an application
to register the mark MACFLOX in class 5 for the class heading
(class 5 is, of course, the pharmaceuticals class). Aventisub
opposed this application on the basis of a 1967 registration for
MAALOX in
