Class 42 Is Up 20% Year Over Year While the Rest of the Register Flatlines

Software and technology-services filings in Class 42 hit 6,632 in September 2026, up 20.2% from the same month a year ago — the biggest year-over-year gain of any top-15 class, in a month when total applications slipped 0.7% to 55,684. Nothing else on the leaderboard moved like it: the second-largest class, Class 41, managed 2.6%, and eight of the fifteen biggest classes shrank from a year earlier.

That divergence is the month. Headline volume looks sleepy — a third straight month-over-month decline. Underneath, the class mix is rotating hard toward software.

What We Found

• Class 42 grew 20.2% year over year to 6,632 class-level filings, the largest YoY gain among the fifteen biggest classes, and it added 6.3% month over month on top of that.
• Year to date, 2026 has 517,822 applications through September — the second-highest January–September total of 2021 through 2026, and 10.3% ahead of 2025's 469,533.
• September's 55,684 applications were down 0.7% from August, the third straight monthly decline and the second-smallest month-over-month move in the trailing year.
• Amazon Technologies filed AWS INFERENTIA and AWS NITRO on the same day, September 30 — two names Amazon already uses for AWS chips and infrastructure.
• Snap was the month's most aggressive TTAB plaintiff with 12 proceedings, ahead of Hims at 10, as oppositions rose 1.7% to 761.
• Housewares ran the other direction: Class 21 fell 13.4% year over year to 2,320, the sharpest top-15 decline.

Filing Volume

September 2026 ranks 3rd of the eleven Septembers from 2016 to 2026, behind 2020 (78,015) and 2025 (56,098). Against the trailing thirteen months it sits 8th of 13 — comfortably mid-pack, well off April's 62,598 peak and well clear of November 2025's 49,081 floor.

Year-to-date is where the strength shows. 2026 has logged 517,822 applications through September against 469,533 for the same stretch of 2025, a gain of 10.3%, and only 2021's 525,646 was higher across the years shown. A flat September does not undo that.

The month-to-month picture is a gentle fade, not a slide: July 59,030, August 56,071, September 55,684 — three consecutive declines, but September's was the second-smallest of the twelve changes in the table. Of September's applications, 55,637 remain pending, 47 are already abandoned, none have registered, and none sit in any other status.

Every September, 2016–2026

September 2026's 55,684 applications rank third among the eleven Septembers since 2016, behind 2020 and 2025.

Measured against September 2025's 56,098, this September came in 414 applications lighter — a 0.7% year-over-year decline, essentially a tie after a 2025 that was itself the second-strongest September in the series.

NICE Class Leaderboard

Class 9 still leads at 7,586, with Class 41 at 7,057 and Class 42 at 6,632 — 954 behind the leader. One caution on reading these against the volume table: class counts tally classes across applications, and a single application can claim several, so a class total and an application total are not the same unit and should not be subtracted from each other.

Class 42 is the outlier worth pricing in. Up 20.2% year over year and 6.3% month over month, it is the only top-15 class growing at double digits, and it is doing so from the third-largest base on the board rather than from a small one. We think this likely reflects continued AI-company formation pushing software-and-platform services filings, though the class is broad enough that design, hosting, and SaaS work all land in it.

The contraction is just as concentrated. Class 21 (-13.4%), Class 20 (-12.5%), Class 36 (-12.1%), and Class 44 (-11.5%) all gave up double digits year over year — housewares, furniture, financial services, and medical services. Class 25 was flat at 5,811 (+0.1%) and Class 35 fell 4.0% to 5,861. Physical-goods classes that carried the e-commerce filing wave are cooling while services classes split: Class 43 posted the month's biggest month-over-month gain at +6.7%, and Class 5 rose 5.3% to 2,957.

Top Filing Owners

OPENEVIDENCE INC. topped the leaderboard with 60 filings, up from 8 in August — a 650% jump, and the kind of single-month burst that usually means a portfolio build or a brand-architecture exercise rather than ordinary maintenance. Boyd Gaming Corporation made a similar move at 32 filings against 9 the prior month, up 255.6%. TOPAZ LABS INC. logged 35 and Kartos Therapeutics, Inc. 28, both from a zero base in August.

Most of the rest of this table is volume, not news. Several entries are individuals and overseas companies filing in batches; HANGZHOU ZHENGWANG TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD. leads that group at 43. Note the scale: the largest single filer in the country this month accounted for 60 applications out of 55,684. There is no concentration at the top of this register.

Top Correspondent Firms

LZ Legal Services, LLC led with 926 filings, up 9.7%, and Swyft Legal LLC followed at 756, down 12.9% — the two online filing operations alone outweigh the next three firms combined. That is the structural fact of the US trademark bar: the highest-volume "firms" are productized filing services.

Among the rest, Trademark Highway LLC fell 21.3% to 332 and SOLORIO LEGAL PC dropped 22.9% to 314, the two steepest declines on the board. Moving the other way: Ray Law Firm, PLLC at 285 (+20.8%) and BAYRAMOGLU LAW OFFICES LLC at 276 (+12.2%).

Notable Filings

Amazon Technologies

Amazon filed AWS INFERENTIA (50137417) and AWS NITRO (50137376) on September 30, the same day. Both names are already attached to Amazon Web Services infrastructure — Inferentia is AWS's machine-learning inference silicon, Nitro its virtualization and hypervisor system — so these read like registry filings catching up to established product branding rather than previews. Amazon also filed KICKTRACK (50138194) that day, which reads like a logistics or activity-tracking service name, and SPACE METAL MANIA (50127321) on September 24, which reads like entertainment or game-title naming.

Disney Enterprises

Three Disney filings landed across two days. DISNEY IMMERSIVE CINEMA (50127464) and GALACTIC RESCUE (50127471) were both filed September 24; CLOVER & FERN (50125960) followed on September 23. The first reads like an exhibition or venue-format name, the second like attraction or interactive-experience naming, and the third like a character or product-line name. One to watch.

Nike

Nike filed CUSHLON (50126190) and MOMENTUM HOUSE (50125269) on September 23. Cushlon is Nike's long-running foam cushioning material, so that filing most likely extends protection on an existing component brand rather than announcing anything new. MOMENTUM HOUSE reads like a retail-concept or program name.

The Coca-Cola Company

ELECTRIC FANTA (50129759) was filed September 25. Fanta is Coca-Cola's, and the mark reads like a flavor-line or limited-edition extension under that house brand.

Google and Meta

Google filed HILIGHT (50136326) on September 29, a compressed spelling that reads like a feature or tool name. Meta filed MUSE CHARM (50130485) on September 25, which reads like a consumer feature or accessory name.

Samsung Electronics America

POWER WHAT YOU LOVE (50133566), filed September 28, reads like an advertising tagline filing — the short declarative phrase structure brands register when a campaign is being locked.

TTAB Activity

Oppositions edged up 1.7% to 761 while cancellations fell 2.4% to 248 — litigation volume essentially matching the flat application picture. SNAP, INC. led all plaintiffs with 12 proceedings; a platform whose core marks are short, common words tends to police the register continuously, because every lapse narrows the zone it can defend later. HIMS, INC. filed 10, consistent with a telehealth brand defending a short house mark in a crowded wellness category. NEW ERA CAP, LLC and VOLKSWAGEN AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT tied at 7, with MCDONALDS CORPORATION and GOPRO, INC. at 6 each. DUKE UNIVERSITY rounds out the list at 4 — universities are persistent TTAB plaintiffs because licensed apparel and merchandise revenue depends on an unpolluted register.

Registration Rates

Read this table as a maturity curve, not a trend. The January 2025 cohort has reached 60.4% registered (37,081 of 61,370) after about 21 months, while the September 2025 cohort sits at 41.7% (23,383 of 56,098) with far less prosecution time behind it. Cohorts nearer the top of the table have had fewer months to clear examination, which largely explains why the rate generally falls from 60.4% for January 2025 to 41.7% for September 2025.

Practitioner Takeaways

1. Price Class 42 crowding into your clearance assumptions. A class growing 20.2% year over year while the overall register is flat means the software-services space is getting denser faster than your last search report assumed — rerun clearance on anything filed more than a quarter ago.

2. Housewares and furniture clients have room. Class 21 is down 13.4% year over year and Class 20 down 12.5%; thinner incoming volume in those classes is a short-term argument for filing now rather than waiting on a launch date.

3. Watch the month-over-month filers, not the top-line names. OpenEvidence going from 8 filings to 60 and Boyd Gaming from 9 to 32 are the kind of jumps that precede brand launches or portfolio restructurings — the leaderboard's static leaders tell you much less.

4. Assume an active opposition environment in platform and consumer-health categories. Snap at 12 proceedings and Hims at 10 in a single month means applicants in adjacent spaces should plan for the opposition window as a real cost, not a formality.

Explore more USPTO data analysis on the GleanMark Insights blog.

Methodology: figures cover USPTO trademark applications by filing date, from GleanMark's mirror of the full USPTO dataset (~14M records). Recent-month filings are ~99% pending — prosecution timing, not outcomes; registration rates use cohorts old enough to have matured. Firm totals cover filings mapped to a correspondent (~70% of the month). Informational, not legal advice.