THE IPKAT - LIVE FROM ISTANBUL

Having arrived safely in Istanbul, the IPKat joined the ranks of 400 trade mark enthusiasts, owners, practitioners and experts attending this year's MARQUES conference at the Ceylan Inter*Continental Hotel. After Day 1, the IPKat, inspired by the excellence of the presentations, offers you the following points for consideration:

(1) Wim Holterman (PwC) mentioned that business to business brands will always be valued lower than brands aimed directly at consumers because B2B brands don't reach out and directly address the consumer. This problem can be resolved, according to Katherine Basile (Howrey Simon) by 'ingredient branding' where a branded product manufacturer promotes the brand of a manufacturer of a constituent of its product (e.g. where branded computers are advertised by reference to the INTEL microprocessor).

(2) On the issue of tax and transfer pricing, Arnout van der Reste (also PwC) raised issues concerning the split between legal and beneficial ownership of trade marks, where the beneficial ownership is held in a lower tax regime. Questions were asked as to whether the split ownership could jeopardize the trade mark registration.

(3) Sheila Henderson (Reckitt Benckiser) and Ben Goodger (Rouse & Co. International) both emphasised the danger of showing in-house counsel just the IP bits of a proposed M & A transaction which give counsel no chance of advising on the IP-related terms within the context of the deal as a whole. This is important, given that the IP terms can make or break the whole deal, depending on how central they are to it.

(4) In the session on the legal aspects of brand extension, Annelise van Zoest (Bockel de Neree) drew attention to the difficulties of showing reputation where the owner of a mark which has been extensively used on one product and then applied to a range of different goods wished to combat its use by a third party on unrelated products.

(5) Ozlem Futman (OFO Ventura) drew attention to the difficulties of registering packaging and slogans in Turkey. While the Turkish trade mark law parallels that of the EU, the Turkish Patent Institute is sometimes liable to reject applications for subject-matter which is registrable elsewhere in Europe.

(6) The conference was treated to a tour de force by Muhtar Kent (CEO, Efes Breweries) who told of the remarkable rise of the EFES brand, which now enjoys more than 75% of the Turkish beer market, and of its Russian subsidiary, which in only 4 years had become one the top Russian beer brands. The IPKat, after sampling more than one glass, can see why...