"Better protection for genuine right owners against trade mark squatters: compensation for damages for bad faith" is the title of a Current Intelligence note by Uğur Aktekin, Güldeniz Doğan Alkan and Tenzile Koçak (of MARQUES member Mehmet Gün & Partners). This note discusses a decision of the General Assembly of the Civil Chambers of the Court of Appeals of 27 March 2013, for which the abstract reads as follows:

The Turkish Court of Appeals (CoA), upholding a ruling of the Ankara IP court (Ankara 2nd Civil Court of Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights, decision of 24 February 2011; Merit No 2011/15; Decision No 2011/51), recently ruled that if it is determined by an IP court that the defendant filed an application in bad faith to obtain a registration for an industrial right and used that right aggressively, the counterparty is entitled to request compensation for the damage incurred during the period the right has been used, a decision which will, it is hoped, deter bad faith applicants from obtaining registrations for industrial rights as well as any the other IP rights requiring registration, such as trade marks.

This note has been published in the May 2014 issue of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (JIPLP).