Five decisions delivered by the Turkish Court of Cassation in 2026 provide a useful basis for examining the boundaries of the indistinguishable similarity standard. Across the disputes, the presence of a common word element did not in itself establish indistinguishable similarity. Instead, the court attached significance to differences in the marks’ overall visual presentation.
This article considers the five decisions together, focusing on the role of the overall impression…
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Article 5(1)(i) of Industrial Property Code No 6769 (the IP Code) prohibits the registration as trademarks of signs consisting of, or containing, a registered GI. The provision’s broad wording raises the question of whether the mere presence of the protected name in the sign applied for is sufficient to justify refusal. Answering this question requires an assessment of the relationship between the collective nature of GIs and the function of a trademark in distinguishing the…
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Article 376 of the Turkish Commercial Code numbered 6102 (the “TCC”) regulates the measures to be taken and the precautions to be implemented by the management of the company, and the procedures to be followed in cases where the company suffers capital loss or becomes over-indebted, in order to ensure the protection of the financial structure of the company and to secure the rights of creditors of the company.
The Communiqué on the Procedures and Principles for the…
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In employment disputes, the application of discretionary reductions (equitable reductions) in calculating claims for overtime pay, weekly rest day pay, and national holidays and public holidays has become an established judicial practice. Applying such a reduction falls directly within the judge’s duties and powers.
The main rationale for this reduction is that an employee’s working continuously at the same pace over a prolonged period, without interruptions due to illness…
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The Regulation on the Provision of Separate Services for Children and Age Verification by Social Network Providers (the “Regulation”), published in the Official Gazette dated 10 October 2026 and numbered 33396, will enter into force on 1 November 2026.
The Regulation was issued pursuant to Additional Article 4 of Law No. 5651 on the Regulation of Publications on the Internet and Combating Crimes Committed through Such Publications. It covers domestic and foreign social…
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Background
An American multinational television channel filed two trademark applications in Türkiye, where the signs at issue both incorporate a stylized background partially incorporating the national flag of the US with additional verbal elements in the front. Both filings were provisionally refused by the Turkish Trademark and Patent Office (“the Office”) pursuant to Article 5/1(g) of the Turkish IP Code (“the IP Code”) reading as “signs that are to be refused pursuant to…
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