The New Trademark Examination Guideline
TÜRKATENT published The New Trademark Examination Guideline (“the Guideline”) on September 30, 2019. The Guideline defines the criteria regarding the examination of trademark applications on absolute grounds for refusal within the scope of the IP Code that came into force in 2017. The Guideline updates the previous guideline that had been in force since 2011, clarify the principles of absolute grounds for refusal that are explained in the IP Code, and provides consistency in… »
Turkish Court Deals With Indirect Infringement Case
Indirect infringement is not explicitly dealt with in the Turkish IP Law. However, the legislator confers, via Article 86 of the Industrial Property Code (IPC), a right to the patent holder to prevent third parties from supplying essential elements of the invention to unauthorised people, which will eventually lead to the working of the patented invention. In order for this provision to be implemented, third parties must be aware that these elements or instruments are… »
An Alternative to Data Transfers Abroad: Binding Corporate Rules
With the announcement dated April 10 2020, Turkish Data Protection Authority (“DPA”) determined Binding Corporate Rules as a mean to be used for the data transfer abroad based on Article 9/2 of Law on Personal Data Protection numbered 6698 (“Law”) and introduced a new tool for the highly controversial and ambiguous matter in Turkey. By indicating in the announcement that the undertakings taken as per Article 9/2 of the Law would be usually practical for the bilateral data… »
Turkish Court of Appeal Rules on Likelihood of Confusion
The Turkish Court of Appeal has overturned lower court decisions in a case concerning likelihood of confusion between trade marks sharing a common weak element. Güldeniz Doğan Alkan and Ayşenur Çıtak explain. Origins of the dispute Türkiye İş Bankası A.Ş., which is a popular bank and holder of the well-known trade mark Türkiye İş Bankası in Turkey, filed an application for the mark shown on the right in classes 9 and 36. An opposition was filed against the application… »
MedTech Europe Guidance Regarding Conduct During COVID-19 Crisis
In the current COVID-19 crisis medical device companies continue to prove support to healthcare professionals, healthcare organizations, healthcare systems and governments in order to fulfill the urgent needs. However, the local regulations and codes of conduct for the industry on relationship between the medical device companies and governmental organizations are still in force. Therefore, it is likely that some actions taken by the medical device companies in response to… »
European Parliament Approved the Proposal for Postponing the Implementation Date of Medical Device Regulation No (EU) 2017/745 (MDR)
The coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis has created extraordinary circumstances that require substantial additional resources and an increased availability of vitally important medical devices. However, none of this could reasonably have been anticipated at the time of adoption of the Medical Device Regulation numbered (EU) 2017 /745 (“MDR”) to be in the force on 26 May 2020. In this regard, on 3 April 2020, the European Commission has adopted a proposal to postpone by one year the… »