A|T|A Turkish Patent & Trademark Law Group

Turkish Trademark Lawyers

Ata Turkish Patent & Trademark Law Group handles trademark registration, opposition against a trademark application, and trademark infringement law suits for a wide range of companies. Our practice encompasses almost every industry, in both the retail and commercial markets, including consumer products, pharmaceuticals and medical technology, manufacturing, energy, financial services, publishing, entertainment, computers, and telecommunications. We draw on our significant experience and blend it with a realistic understanding of the business environment so as to wisely, but practically, apply the law to meet clients' trademark needs to yield commercially viable solutions. Further, we manage our trademark practice with a team of skilled lawyers and legal assistants in order to provide our clients with customized, client-focused services that are prompt, proactive, and value-added.

Collectively, Ata Turkish Patent & Trademark Group offers our clients the full range of legal services encompassed by a branding strategy:

• Selection and clearance of trademarks
• Prosecution and maintenance of trademarks in the Turkey and Europe
• Principal and supplemental registrations
• Counseling, including trademark use and portfolio management
• Transactions, such as licensing, distribution, private labeling, and franhising
• Due diligence arising from various transactions involving trademarks
• Trademark infringement analysis
• Civil litigation including infringement, dilution cases, and counterfeiting
• Turkish Patent Institute litigation, including opposition and cancellation

In an economy largely driven by brand recognition, establishing and protecting company names and trademarks is critical. Today more than ever, a business' unique identity, reputation, and brand provide tangible return-on-investment and a critical competitive advantage. A well thought out and executed branding strategy can yield significant income based on the perception of one's trademarks in the market place.

To permit our clients to capitalize on their brands and trademarks, Ata Turkish Patent & Trademark Group IP attorneys assist our clients in identifying, evaluating, and protecting important trademark properties to help them achieve the most effective protection for their proprietary trademarks and service marks. Further, we help our clients develop coherent brand strategies for registering and protecting their marks, in both the manner and jurisdictions that afford the greatest protection and in the context of their business goals and their budgets. In this regard, our attorneys manage multinational trademark portfolios and work with an extended network of trademark attorneys and agents in every significant market and jurisdictions around the world.

Ata Turkish Patent & Trademark Group global trademark counseling incorporates all of the various registration vehicles available to its clients. Our attorneys have routinely counseled clients on the pros and cons of the international registration system for trademarks. Likewise, we work with our clients to develop strategies for "first to file" countries and "first to use" countries, as well as "use based" countries and "intent-to-use" countries. And of course, our attorneys have an intimate knowledge of Turkish Trademarks Code, known as the statute that encompasses trademarks.

The services of Ata Turkish Patent & Trademark Group's trademark lawyers go beyond the protection and defense of trademarks to the broader field of unfair competition law, including trade dress infringement, false advertising, deceptive trade practices, misappropriation, passing off, defamation, right of publicity, parody, counterfeiting, and related issues.

The trademark services we offer our clients begin at a mark's inception. At the first stage of development of a branding strategy, we provide assistance in the identification of potential marks. In today's crowded market, choosing potential marks that can mature into a unique, competitive brand name is often daunting, particularly when there is a desire to marry a mark with an available domain name. We offer educational seminars in the proper selection of trademarks. In this early stage of development, we also conduct clearance searches to determine the availability of trademarks. We offer our clients proactive advice during the selection process and render clearance opinions on marks of interest. We draw upon our extensive litigation experience to guide our approach to counseling, prosecution, enforcement, ad review, and due diligence.

We also counsel our clients on the proper use and protection of trademarks, and create individualized trademark use guidelines for clients to help them maximize the strength of their marks. Our trademark attorneys routinely speak at industry events and conduct in-house seminars to educate our clients on the various issues involved in creating and protecting a valuable brand.

Of course, brand recognition is often more than just a word or logo. Ata Turkish Patent & Trademark Group attorneys have significant experience in trade dress, package design, graphics, product configuration, collective membership marks, certification marks, trade names, Internet domain names, and even the use of color or sound as a trademark.

Further, our counsel draws upon the interplay between intersecting bodies of intellectual property law, such as copyrights, design patents, and utility patents. For example, we have experience in handling the full scope of Internet and e-commerce issues that can erode one's trademark rights, including data-mining, hyper-linking, domain name disputes, metatags, cyber-squatting, pay-for-placement, and web-related copyright and trademark infringement.

Turkish Trademark Litigation

Winning an IP case is the product of experience and the execution of a skillful, balanced strategy. In litigation, Ata Turkish Patent & Trademark Group capitalizes on its attorneys' experience in having filed and prosecuted hundreds of trademark, patent, and copyright applications. Our teams of IP attorneys and trial lawyers have litigated all types of intellectual property matters in Turkish Ip courts and the Supreme Court.

Clients confronted with disputes involving their patents, trademarks, service marks, trade dress, trade secrets, or copyrights can rely on our experienced litigators to aggressively defend their interests in matters extending from infringement claims to unfair competition to disputes over commercial licensing agreements. We assist our clients in all stages of intellectual property conflicts and resolution of the conflict, from pre-litigation analysis and communications through final verdict and, if necessary, appeal.

Ata Turkish Patent & Trademark Group attorneys have successfully represented numerous corporations, including Fortune 500 companies, in infringement lawsuits involving intellectual property. Our experience includes successful appeals to Turkish Supreme Court. Our IP trial lawyers have also enforced and defended our clients' intellectual property rights in arbitrations, alternative dispute forums, and proceedings before the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce.

We actively monitor the use of our clients' intellectual property, and we can act quickly to enforce these various rights against infringers through the effective use of temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions. With vast experience in both prosecuting and defending litigation cases involving patents, trademarks, and copyrights, we have been successful in recovering damages and quickly obtaining injunctions for our clients. In some cases, our commercial litigation experience allows us to resolve licensing and contract disputes quickly and efficiently.

Trademark Search

One of the most important steps in trademark registration procedure is to conduct an extensive trademark search in order to identify potential conflicts with existing trademarks and as a confirmation that your trademark is almost available for registration.

That's why, it is recommended as the first step in determining whether your trademark is available for use. Alternatively, you may conduct it by officially requesting from Turkish Patent Institute.

Here, you may search registered trademarks as well as published trademark applications in Turkey. A good trademark search which identifies potential conflicts includes existing trademarks in Turkish market, company name registers and pending trademark applications & registrations before Turkish Patent Institute. When analyzing a trademark search report, it is important to take into consideration a number of factors to determine whether your mark is infringing on or likely to be confused with another trademark; such as similarity, company names, company services/classification and degree of confusion likely to be exercised by the purchasers.

It is important to understand that a trademark search cannot provide you with a definitive "answer" as to whether or not your proposed trademark is available for use and registration. It does, however, arm you with information regarding potential risks associated with the mark which effect your decision in the use and registration of your mark, which, in turn, lead you investing money for alternatives to save time.

It is also important to note that a trademark used or registered earlier in Turkey may also pose an obstacle to registration. The adoption of a trademark confusingly similar to a trademark currently in use by other may give rise to a claim for infringement and litigation.

Trademark Services

In general, the services we provide regarding trademark are as follows;

• Trademark application
• Trademark search
• Trademark renewal
• Trademark watch
• Drafting deed of assignment
• Drafting license agreement
• Register of license/assignment
• Register of name/address change
• Company merging