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Protection of Trademarks under Unfair
Competition Provisions*
Att. Yesim Tokgoz
Competition is a constitutional right. However, to assert the decep-
tive and dishonest acts among people, competitors, clients and seller,
as a right, and to protect these acts, is impossible. Unfortunately, at the
present time, trademarks, which are the most important factors in com-
petition, are being used to provide unjust gains. In this article, protec-
tion of trademarks under unfair competition provisions and the unfair
competition actions will be addressed.
The Protection of Registered and Unregistered Trademarks
As it is emphasized in our previous article1, trademarks are pro-
tected under Decree-Law on the Protection of Trademarks numbered
556 (“Decree-Law”) in the Turkish legal system. However, protection
is not limited with this. In accordance with the established case law2,
actions that are derived from the Decree- Law, and actions of unfair
competition, can be initiated at the same time. However, in this event,
the Court shall separately examine whether or not the act that infringes
the right of the trademark’s holder, constitutes a breach under the
unfair competition provisions, as well.
The protection of the Decree-Law begins with registration. This
protection is national. However, trademarks are far too universal to be
protected only within national borders. Therefore, the protection of
334 NEWSLETTER 2015
* Article of December 2015
1 For more information:
on-trademarks/ (accessed on 04.01.2016).
2 Decision of the 11th Chamber of the Court of Cassation, dated 05.07.2001 and numbered
2001/4502 E., 2001/6197 K may be given as example in the relevant matter.