Supreme Court Declares in the Long-Lasting Trademark Combat That the Attention Level for Unprescribed Medicines Is No Different Than the Prescribed Ones.
Supreme Court Assembly of Civil Chambers has rendered a significant decision (E. 2017/413, K. 2021/1127 T. 30.09.2021) on the long-lasting trademark combat between the pharma trademarks.
In the precedent, the plaintiff- owner of the “ZINCO” trademark covering the goods in class 05– filed a cancellation action against the Turkish PTO’s decision refusing its opposition to the latter application for “ZINCOBEST” covering class 05.
The First Instance Court decided that even though the plaintiff’s trademark “ZINCO” has low distinctiveness due to being used in various medicines as an active ingredient, the users may confuse or associate the trademarks “ZINCO” and “ZINCOBEST” in the event that the medicines under such trademarks are sold without prescription. Therefore, the court decided for invalidation of the defendant’s “ZINCOBEST” trademark.
