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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Introduction
A long-awaited legal arrangement on employees’ automatic enrolment in private pension plans by their employers was introduced into Turkish law by way of an amendment law published on August 25 2016. The amendment law adds new provisions to the Private Pension Savings and Investment System Act 2001.
Accordingly, employees (including public officials) under the age of 45 will be enrolled in a private pension plan with a pension agreement between the employer and a…
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Introduction
On January 25 2017 Transparency International published the 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index, which reflects non-governmental organisations’ and business world representatives’ perception of public sector corruption and ranks countries on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). The results are based on 13 research initiatives conducted by 12 international organisations in 176 countries.(1)
Turkey came 75th out of 176 countries (nine places lower…
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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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Ministry of Health to follow EU Medical Devices Regulations
Bentley James Yaffe and Nehir Aydeniz, Gün + Partners
Following the EU’s adoption of Regulations (EU) 2017/745 on medical devices and 2017/746 on in vitro diagnostic medical devices of 5 April 2017, the Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency announced in May that the two new regulations would also be adopted in Turkey. The announcement stated that the regulations would be published as nationally applicable…
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On May 5th, 2017 the Turkish Data Protection Authority published the Draft Regulation on Data Controllers’ Registry (“Draft Regulation”) for comments to be submitted. The Draft Regulation is based on Article 16 of the Law on the Protection of Personal Data (“Law”) which came into force last year on April 7th, which states under the supervision of the Board of Protection of Personal Data (“Board”), Data Controllers Registry (“Registry”) will be kept by the Presidency of the…
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On May 5th, 2017 the Turkish Data Protection Authority published the Draft Regulation on Data Controllers’ Registry (“Draft Regulation”) for comments to be submitted. The Draft Regulation is based on Article 16 of the Law on the Protection of Personal Data (“Law”) which came into force last year on April 7th, which states under the supervision of the Board of Protection of Personal Data (“Board”), Data Controllers Registry (“Registry”) will be kept by the Presidency of the…
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The Industrial Property Code (6769), which abolished previous IP-related decree laws, and the regulation on its implementation entered into force respectively on January 10 2017 and April 24 2017 (see “New IP Code enters into force: 2017 will be the year of IP rights” and “Entry into force of new Regulation on the Implementation of the Industrial Property Code”). The code has introduced the long-awaited co-existence principle for trademarks and the possibility to overcome the…
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Legal framework
Turkey is a party to most international IP-related treaties, including the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), which aims to harmonise the legal framework for anti-counterfeiting and anti-piracy. Turkey’s new IP Code entered into force on January 10 2017 upon its publication in the Official Gazette. The new law amends decree-laws pertaining to the protection of trademarks, patents, geographical indications and industrial…
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Industrial Property Code
The Industrial Property Code 6769, which abolishes previous IP-related decree-laws and unites all IP rights, including trademarks, patents, industrial designs, utility models, geographical indications and traditional product names, was published in the Official Gazette and entered into force on January 10 2017 (see “New IP Code enters into force: 2017 will be the year of IP rights”). According to provisional Article 2 of the Industrial Property Code…
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The New Turkish Industrial Property Code entered into force on January 10 2017. The IP Code replaces the Decree-laws pertaining to the protection of trade marks, patents, geographical indications and designs by unifying them into a single code.
Among other reforms, the trade mark chapter includes changes relating to prosecution and opposition procedures for trade marks. These are now in greater compliance with the relevant European Union directives.
First, the graphical…
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