Zanzibar joins TMclass

As of 23 May 2025, the Zanzibar Business and Property Registration Agency (BPRA) will accept the terms from the harmonised database of goods and services (HDB) in the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) TMclass search and classification tool.

Following BPRA’s decision to adopt the HDB, there are now 37 IP offices outside the EU that accept the terms from this database.

The new incorporation of BPRA in TMclass brings the total number of participating national and regional IP offices, including the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the EUIPO, to 97.

TMclass offers users the opportunity to search and translate goods and services in any of the 44 available languages as well as verifying the terms’ correct classification under the Nice classification system.

The EUIPO has long been a pioneer in providing free, high-quality data to promote market openness and transparency. The integration of BPRA in TMclass is a tangible result of the EUIPO’s ongoing collaboration efforts in Africa, building strategic alliances with IP offices to improve data access. This initiative has been further supported by the EU-funded IP cooperation project ‘AfrIPI’.