With its recent decision dated March 9 2017 and numbered 2016/14857 E, 2017/1442 K, the Turkish Court of Appeals (CoA), by reversing its previous decision in the same dispute, held that the trade marks Uludağ Zero and Panda Zero cannot be considered confusingly similar on the basis of the commonness of the term “zero” since this term is descriptive for beverages.
The decision concerns a cancellation action filed by the plaintiff against the decision given by the Turkish…
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Under Turkish procedure law, a preliminary injunction is regulated as a temporary legal protection measure pursuant to Article 389 of the Civil Procedure Code (6100). The aim of this protection is to prevent much higher damages during proceedings that continue for at least four to five years until the decision is finalised. The adoption of preliminary injunction decisions depends on the existence of certain conditions, such as a situation which may make it difficult to…
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Turkey’s Industrial Property Code No 6769 (“the IPC”) was published in the Official Gazette and came into force on 10 January 2017. The IPC abolished the Decree Laws on the protection of trademarks, patents, geographical indications (“GIs”) and designs by unifying them into a single code.
One of the main aims of the IPC is providing compliance with developments in EU IP law. At this point, in addition to unifying and harmonising the existing…
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Abstract
Partners Uğur Aktekin and Güldeniz Doğan Alkan examine the reach of Turkey‘s new IP Code and its impact on traditional product names.
Analysis
The Industrial Property Code No. 6769 (the IPC) was published in the Official Gazette and came into force on 10 January 2017. The IPC abolished the Decree-Laws on the protection of Trademarks, Patents, Geographical Indications (GIs) and Designs by unifying them into a single code.
One of the main aims of the IPC is…
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In September 2015 a global medical device company filed a patent infringement action and requested a preliminary injunction against a local company for the immediate prohibition of the production and sale of medical devices on the grounds that the local company was infringing the originator company’s registered patent with its medical devices.
Before filing the action, the patent practice team worked with a European patent attorney and a reputable professor working on medical…
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Plain packaging has become a hot topic in Turkey as controlling the consumption of tobacco has been one of the top priorities of the Turkish government. The government has adopted the 2015-2018 National Programme and Action Plan for Tobacco Control, which stipulates the implementation of necessary provisions related to plain packaging into the relevant legislation.
The Ministry of Health added a provision in relation to standardised packaging to the draft omnibus bill in…
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The Turkish Intellectual and Artistic Works Law No 5846 (the Copyright Law) is the law regulating copyright protection in Turkey. Law 5846 was first enacted in 1951. It has been amended several times in 1995, 2001 and more recently in 2004 to comply with the requirements of international treaties.
Since November 2016, a Draft Law has been prepared amending Law 5846 and the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism has recently published the Draft Law, including the proposed…
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The Turkish Patent and Trademark Office recently published the Regulation on the Code of Conduct and Discipline of Patent Attorneys and Trademark Attorneys, with the aim of regulating:
the rules and procedures applicable to the conduct of patent and trademark attorneys; l the Disciplinary Board of Patent and Trademark Attorneys;
the methods to be used to detect acts requiring a disciplinary penalty; and
other disciplinary issues.
In Turkey, the rules on patent and trademark…
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The Turkish Patent and Trademark Office has published the Regulation on the Code of Conduct and Discipline of Patent and Trademark Attorneys on May 17, 2017. Up to now, there has been no regulation directly referring to Code of Conduct and discipline of Patent and Trademark Attorneys. The rules for the attorneys were firstly regulated by the Law of the Establishment and Functions of Turkish Patent Institute no. 5000 dated November 06, 2003; however this law used to regulate…
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The Industrial Property Code No 6769 (the ‘IP Code’), which was prepared by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (the ‘Office’), and abolished previous intellectual property (IP)-related decree laws was accepted by Parliament on 22 December 2016 and entered into force on 10 January 2017 following its publication in the Official Gazette.In the 1990s, Turkey conducted official negotiations with the European Union (EU) in order to become a member of the Customs Union. Within…
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The Turkish Trade Mark Office has allowed an opposition based on genuine rights obtained via prior use of the opponent’s trade mark and worldwide registrations although that trade mark is not used in Turkey for the relevant goods and services.
The opponent is the owner of the New Zealand’s famous rugby team (the New Zealand Kiwis), commonly known as “The Kiwis”, and has trade mark registrations for “The Kiwis” in many countries. Turkey however is not one of them and the…
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The Court of Appeal recently issued a decision stating that although a trademark application for retail services of certain goods in Class 35 was similar to a senior trademark – the scope of which was indicated with general phrases such as “retail services of all/various goods” in Class 35 – the application could not be rejected on the grounds of confusing similarity unless the owner of the senior trademark proved that it was genuinely used (or at the very least, serious…
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