Trademark law has continued to evolve at a slow pace within the course of the last year, while January, 2020, marks the completion of the third year of Industry Property Code No. 6769 (“the IP Code”).
The Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (“TÜRKPATENT” or “the Office”) issued guidelines in an aim to bring clarity on absolute grounds examination, and a new guideline is to be announced within the first half of 2020. The decisions of TÜRKPATENT in opposition and appeal phases…
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The loss of right due to the acquiescence principle had not been regulated in Turkish Law prior to the implementation of the IP Code. However, the Court of Appeals has started to apply this principle based on the circumstances of each case within the scope of the good faith principle and prohibition on abuse of rights, which is regulated under Article 2 of the Turkish Civil Code (“TCC”), and these have become established case-law precedents.
In the decisions of the Court of…
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According to Article 4 of the IP Code a sign should be distinctive in order to benefit from trademark protection. Distinctiveness is an essential factor in determining the scope of protection of a trademark, and the protection scope of trademarks differs according to the distinctiveness level of the component(s) that form the trademark.
The trademarks composed of non-distinctive components, or components where the distinctiveness is weak, are called “weak trademarks.”…
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The assessment of accuracy of the Office’s decisions has always been a controversial issue under Turkish trademark law. A recent decision issued by the 2nd IP Court of Ankara that opposed the Court of Appeal’s (“CoA”) decision, constitutes a remarkable precedent, illuminating the issue.
The owner of earlier trademarks, which are also recorded as a well-known trademark by TÜRKPATENT, filed a lawsuit in opposition against a later-dated, and confusingly similar application.
The…
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As per the settled Court of Appeals (“the CoA”) precedents established during the Trademark Decree-Law era – which ended upon enactment of the new Intellectual Property Code No. 6769 (“IP Code”) on January 10, 2017, it was accepted that use, which was based on a registered trademark, cannot create infringement, regardless of whether this use creates confusion and infringement with a senior trademark registration.
As a result of these precedents, use based on a registered…
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Article 42/1(d) of the former Decree Law set forth that an invalidation action could be filed against a trademark if it becomes a common name of the goods or services it was registered for as a result of the trademark proprietor’s behaviours.
The same rule was preserved in the IP Code under Article 26/1(b) as grounds for revocation, instead of invalidation, and with different wording. As per Article 26/1(b), the Office may revoke the trademark upon request, if the trademark…
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