The silhouette of a Fender Stratocaster is protectable in its own right, separate from the word "Fender" printed on the headstock. That's the most interesting thing about Nice Class 15 — a small, focused class for musical instruments where the shape of the product sometimes does more brand work than the name does.
Instruments, Not the Industry Around Them
Class 15 covers instruments of every family — string (guitars, violins, cellos, basses), keyboard (pianos, acoustic keyboards), wind (trumpets, saxophones, flutes, clarinets), percussion (drums, cymbals, mallets) — plus their parts, fittings, stands, cases, and instrument-specific tools like tuning devices. What it deliberately does not cover is the rest of the music business built around those instruments. Purely electronic audio gear — amplifiers, mixers, many digital devices — leans toward Class 9. Music education, live performance, and entertainment services are Class 41. Printed sheet music is Class 16. An electric guitar itself is Class 15; the amplifier it plugs into usually is not.
That split matters in practice more than it sounds like it should. A brand selling both instruments and amps — which is most of the serious ones — needs to file across Class 15 and Class 9 rather than assume "music gear" is a single category. Our Class 9 guide covers the electronics half.
When the Body Shape Is the Brand
Few product categories rely as heavily on trade dress as instrument bodies do. The contour of a Stratocaster, the form of a Gibson Les Paul, the outline of a grand piano — these shapes have become so tied to specific makers that they've generated real trade-dress disputes over who can produce a similarly contoured guitar. To win that kind of protection you have to show the shape is non-functional and has acquired distinctiveness on its own, separate from any name stamped on it, which is a harder bar to clear than registering a wordmark but can be worth pursuing for a genuinely iconic design. Our guide to trade dress protection covers the mechanics.
Fender and Gibson anchor this territory on the guitar side; Steinway & Sons does the same for pianos as a heritage brand built almost entirely on reputation and craftsmanship rather than novelty; Yamaha spans both the acoustic-instrument side of Class 15 and a genuinely separate audio-electronics business in Class 9.
Instrument makers that also run music schools or host events need Class 41 alongside Class 15 — the artist-facing side of that is covered in our music band trademark guide — and retail or e-commerce sales pull in Class 35. The recurring misfile is treating amplifiers as part of the instrument class when they belong in Class 9, followed closely by filing sheet music here instead of Class 16.
Digital and Hybrid Instruments Blur the Class 15/9 Line Further
Electronic keyboards, digital pianos, and MIDI controllers complicate the Class 15/Class 9 split even more than an electric guitar and its amplifier do, because these instruments are simultaneously a musical instrument in the traditional sense and, functionally, a piece of computer hardware running sound-generation software. In practice, most digital keyboard and synthesizer brands file in Class 15 for the instrument itself, since it's marketed, sold, and understood by musicians as an instrument first — but a manufacturer whose product leans heavily on proprietary software (a synth built around a distinctive sound-engine algorithm, for instance) may reasonably add Class 9 to protect the software and firmware layer as its own asset, separate from the hardware casing it ships inside. This is a judgment call more than a bright rule, and it's one worth making deliberately rather than defaulting to whichever class feels more familiar.
Instrument Accessories: A Smaller Class 15 Footprint Than Expected
Accessories like guitar picks, reeds, drumsticks, and instrument straps are Class 15 goods, filed alongside the instruments themselves as instrument-specific accessories rather than under a general accessories or leather-goods class. That's a narrower footprint than some accessory makers expect: a strap manufacturer might assume a leather strap belongs in Class 18 the way a leather belt would, but because it's functionally tied to an instrument rather than being a general fashion or carrying good, it stays in Class 15. Where this does shift is instrument cases meant primarily for transport and storage rather than instrument function — heavy-duty flight cases in particular sometimes get filed under Class 20 (containers) rather than Class 15, depending on how the case is marketed and whether it's positioned as instrument-specific protective gear or as general luggage-style storage.
Search registered Class 15 trademarks before you settle on a name or a body shape — this is a focused industry where names cluster and shape claims add a second front to clear.