IPONZ is expecting to perform the following changes to its Trade Mark practice guidelines and specifications:

• IPONZ will update its practices around the acceptability of a range of goods and services. This will allow several of our written guidelines to reflect current practice, and will ensure their consistency with the 11th Edition of the Nice Classification System.
• IPONZ will update its practices for trade mark applications with Māori geographical names, following recent treaty claim settlements as well as comments from iwi. All trade mark applications with Māori geographical names will now be forwarded to the Māori Advisory Committee for advice whether the mark is likely to be offensive to Māori.
• IPONZ will update the options in its Goods and Services Classification selector so as to reflect recent WIPO updates.

The above changes are expected in early January 2018.