The perception of trademark registration in Turkey differs considerably from practice abroad. The so-called “class covering” approach — filing across an entire class regardless of actual use — is deeply entrenched, and new applicants tend to follow the same pattern.
The main reason for this is that proof of use can only be requested by a party claiming to be harmed in a dispute, and there is no legal requirement to submit proof of use at set intervals. In the US or the UK, for example, you cannot simply register a trademark and set it aside. Proof of use must periodically be submitted to the Office — otherwise, the registration lapses.
In Turkey, by contrast, once a trademark is registered, the owner can effectively sit back. Whether the mark has been used or not makes no practical difference, as long as no third party files an opposition invoking non-use.
There is also what might be called an “opposition habit” in Turkey. Some trademark owners hold onto marks they have never used, purely as leverage, and file oppositions accordingly — some even manage to register purely descriptive terms and use them to try to shut down others.
For legitimate trademark owners, this sometimes becomes a matter of necessary self-defense. Imitating well-known marks in one way or another is almost a tradition in Turkey, and this approach can go to considerable lengths — even attempting to register minor variations of an already well-known or simply already-registered mark, persistently. For this reason, trademark owners may be forced into “class covering” or filing numerous oppositions purely to protect their marks from such attacks.
So, naturally, there are always two sides to the same situation. But being an attorney within a system where the concept of a trademark is not firmly established — and where the system sometimes imposes a “more royalist than the king” dynamic on us — is not an easy position. You must not only guide your client correctly on how a trademark should function, but also protect them against imitators.
On top of that, one has to deal with fraudsters who present themselves as “attorneys” while having nothing to do with the profession. People whose only goal is easy money are always around — and the saddest part is that they still manage to find victims.
Written by: Deniz Çelikel • Patent and Trademark Attorney
