Red Bull sues Turkey’s local soda company

ISTANBUL

Red Bull, an Austrian company known for its range of energy drinks, has filed a trademark cancellation lawsuit against a local company producing soda in the Mediterranean province of Antalya.

The industry’s giant came across with a Turkish local soda company in the same lawsuit after the local company’s producer, Salman Akşun, applied to the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TürkPatent) for the registration of his brand, Zilli Öküz Gazoz (Jingle Ox Soda).

When Akşun applied to the TürkPatent for the registration of his trademark in July 2019, the institution carrying out the procedural review published the registration application.

Upon publication, Red Bull’s lawyers became aware of the situation and demanded from the TürkPatent to deny the registration request by the local brand.

TürkPatent responded negatively to the demands of Red Bull’s lawyers on the ground that there was no similarity between the two brands in terms of their names and logos and registered the local soda brand after a while.

Following the negative response, Red Bull’s lawyers filed a lawsuit in an Ankara court to nullify the local brand.

Akşun’s lawyer rejected the similarity claim between the two brands in his defense petitions to the court, noting that the bulls and the ox on the logos are different in shape.

The Ankara Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights Court will say the last word in the brand fight that started between Red Bull and Zilli Öküz Gazoz.