Trademark coexistence agreement

The producers of the goods and the services prefer to use some unique symbols and signs, that we call as trademak, in order to distinguish their products or services among the similar ones. Trademarks rule out the troublesome possibilities by distinguishing products or services of enterprises in similar fields. In this thesis it is investigated the treatment of trademark coexistence agreements that allow potentially confusing trademarks to coexist in the market without trademark infringement lawsuits. Despite the fact that trademark owners frequently use coexistence agreements to avoid or settle lawsuits, there is no significant scholarship discussing the legal validity of such agreements in terms of antitrust and trademark law. A trademark's geographic and product boundaries may change over time. Geographic expansion means, trademark owner expands the usage of the trademark into another users'geographic market. Product line expansion accured when the trademark owner moves into or close to the other's field of use. Both of these expansion options might lead the trademark owner to make new trademark application. Especially, through the international trademark application systems, similar trademarks in different countries encounter in global market. Although coexistence agreement have not been paid much attention in Turkey, within the European Union (EU) this agreement is quite widespread. The reason of this, the trademark coexistence agreement particularly applicable after the introduction of the Community Trademark System (CTM) which is a registration system contain European Union member states. With the introduction of the CTM in 1994, trademarks of 28 Member States are now offered protection under one harmonized system that gives access to free trade within the Internal Market. Prior to the CTM, owners of similar trademarks, might have had no reason to get to know of the other's existence, nonetheless, if one party now applies for a CTM it realizes that there is a highly similar trademark in another Member State. In spite of the fact that trademark owners that have potentially confusing trademark prefer coexistence agreements to use their trademark in global market without likelihood of confusion. Even though trademark owners use coexistence agreement, the lack of legal arrangement and the limited case law affect the applicability of agreement in a negative way. A limited number of cases relating to coexistence agreements have been subject to the European Courts and the Commission. As it is subjected in this thesis, today, the Courts and Commission recognize the positive effects of such agreements, and currently there is a more positive attitute towards the agreement. Even though the coexistence agreement falls within the scope of written law, case law suggests that the agreement may be exempted if there is serious likelihood of confusion between the trademarks, and the coexistence agreement is a genuine solution of conflict. As coexistence agreement become increasingly important, there is a growing demand for guidance concerning these agreements. It is difficult to provide specific answer to every possible scenario at this stage, but the existence of appropriate guidelines would assist companies and lawyers in assessing the compatibility of the coexistence with trademark law.