101 Union of Turkish Bar Associations Review 2023 Dilara Naz GÜLÜM This program compares goods/services within the scope of the Nice classes and provides users with decisions related to the selected goods/services from the trademark offices of the WIPO, as well as the United States and the EU member states.68 According to the EUIPO Examination Guidelines, the similarity tool serves to ensure uniformity in the application of similarity assessment and guarantees consistency in decisions.69 Within the scope of the EUIPO’s Similarity Tool, the search conducted does not only produce results in terms of identity/ similarity/difference, but also includes the reasoning behind these findings. The provided reasoning is based on the criteria outlined by the European Court of Justice in the Canon decision.70 These criteria can be listed as follows: 1. Structure, 2. Purpose, 3. Method of use, 4. Complementarity of goods/services, 5. Competition between goods/services, 6. Distribution channels, 7. Relevant public, 8. Producer/supplier. 3. Applied Method of TURKPATENT In the 2015 Guideline, it was stated that the following steps would be followed in the assessment of determining similar goods/services:71 Firstly, the signs contained in the trademarks would be considered “identical,” and in this case, the question of whether the goods/services 68 Paslı, p. 37. 69 EUIPO, Guidelines for Examination of European Union Trademarks, Part C, Section 2, Chapter 2, para. 1.3. 70 CJEU, Canon Kabushiki Kaisha v. Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Inc., C-39/97, D. 29.09.1998 (ipcuria.eu, Last accessed: 06.06.2021). 71 2015 Guideline, p. 121.
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