In November 2011, the Turkish Patent Institute published Trademark and Industrial Design Examination Guidelines.
The guidelines were prepared with the collaboration of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) and German Federal Patent Court judges, within the scope of the EU twinning project entitled ‘Supporting Turkey for Enhancing Implementation and Enforcement of Industrial Property Rights’ which has been carried out by TPI and the German Foundation for International Legal Cooperation (IRZ).
In introductory meetings, the TPI stated that although the guidelines were prepared based on OHIM’s Examination Guidelines, the existing implementations, proceedings and precedents of Turkish Trademark Law were also considered.
The Trademark Examination Guidelines do not bring a fundamental change to trademark application and opposition examination proceedings. They merely bring together all previous uncodified criteria. One of the criteria that can be considered as new for Turkish practice concerns the application requirements for single colour or colour-combination trademarks. As of the guidelines’ publication, the TPI will also require a reference to the internationally-accepted colour code (RAL, Pantone, etc) of the subject colour or colours.
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Turkey, TPI, trademark guidelines, similar marks, confusion
