EU gives the go ahead to Turkey for ‘Turkaegean’ trademark, the USA says No

The European Union agency responsible for trademarks has granted an application from Turkey for registration of the term “Turkaegean.”

The European Union Intellectual Property Office granted the trademark last December to the Turkish Tourism Promotion and Development Agency. The trademark will remain valid until July 2031.

According to the GoTürkiye website, Turkaegean is the “coast of happiness”. It states: “Join the Turkaegean experience in the coast of happiness! The Aegean Region of Türkiye offers you the beautiful landscapes, dazzling coastlines, immaculate beaches, pine woods and olive groves.”

Meanwhile, it has emerged that earlier this month the United States Patent and Trademark Office provisionally refused an application from the same Turkish agency to register the trademark in the US.

The reasons given for the provisional refusal are that the wording in the application identifying the services offered under “Turkaegean” is indefinite, a description of the trademark was not included in the original application and the applicant’s email address was not included.

It gave the Turkish Tourism Promotion and Development Agency six months to resubmit the application through a US-licensed attorney.

A search on the website of the World Intellectual Property Organization shows that the trademark “Turkaegean” is described as “active” in five jurisdictions (Australia, Brunei, Japan, WIPO and the EU) and is “pending” in another 15 (Mongolia, Cambodia, Canada, Cuba, Iceland, Indonesia, Israel, Laos, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Samoa, Singapore, Thailand and the US).