Turkish IP Delights

Amendment to Trademark Similarity Assessment Guidelines

The Turkish Patent Institute (TPI) does not have official guidelines on the examination of trademark oppositions. However, established practice has led to unofficial examination guidelines. The TPI recently made amendments to the guidelines concerning trademark similarity examinations.

According to its most recent decisions, the TPI now assesses the similarity of trademarks in a more flexible manner. In other words, the TPI now has fewer reasons for finding trademarks similar than before, and increasingly similar trademarks have a chance of being registered for the same goods and services. For example, the TPI previously refused three-letter word and device combination trademarks, even if the trademarks contain different device elements or have different characters, based on similarity during their assessments. However, the present situation is that if the trademarks have different device elements or are