Trademark Coexistence Agreement

Trademark law, which is a sub-branch of industrial property law, deals with the procedures and principles regarding the registration and protection of commercial signs. A brand is the sign that aims to distinguish the goods and services of a business from other businesses. The trademark co-existence agreement is not clearly regulated in Turkish law. However, the "consent" application regulated in the Industrial Property Code numbered 6769 (IPC), which entered into force on January 10, 2017, has formed the legal basis of the co-existence agreement of brands.

The same or indistinguishably similar marks (IPC, Article 5/1-ç) with the registered trademark or the trademark for which the registration application was made on the same or the same type of goods or services are regulated as absolute grounds for refusal in the law. However, in the last paragraph of the same article, "A trademark application cannot be rejected in accordance with subparagraph (ç) of the first