February 9,2019:
FC Barcelona is a football club that plays in the men’s top professional football division of the Spanish football league system. The club is popularly known as Barca locally and amongst the fans. A Turkish textile company is facing legal trouble because its name sounds too familiar to the fans of Barcelona.
Spanish football club filed a Trademark infringement lawsuit against Barca Textile which is based in Istanbul. The club claims that the textile company is infringing its Trademark.
Turkish lawyer Nazli Deniz Kol says that Barca is the name by which the club is known across the world. Kol also added that the club has countless Trademarks in nearly 100 countries and also has a large fan base in Turkey.
The lawsuit appeared when the football club failed to register its Trademark in Turkey and came to know that Barca Textile had already secured the name officially after applying to the state-run patent authority in Turkey.
The lawyer Kol states that Barca has been used as the name of the football club since 1899, to which the owner of Barca Textile disagrees.
According to Ali Öziçer, the owner of Barca Textile, his company was founded in 1997 and the name means ‘boat’ in Italian.
Ali said that the company have been exporting clothes to many European countries under this name and have registered Trademark in those countries. Ali said they also applied for a Trademark in Spain but were turned down.
Ali further stated that Barcelona had planned to open a restaurant in Turkey. “They have come here and applied to the authorities [to open a restaurant] under the name of ‘Barça.’ And we have appealed to their [name] registration application. The club has applied twice, and we appealed twice. Now they have filed a lawsuit,” Öziçer said.
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