Greece has hired a law firm to prevent Türkiye from obtaining a patent for its "TurkAegean" tourism campaign, which was created to lure visitors to the country’s southwestern shores from the U.S. and EU market, Greek daily Kathimerini reported.
Accordingly, Athens has enlisted the services of Steptoe & Johnson, based in Washington, D.C., which is skilled in handling complex legal cases related to trade and border disputes.
Athens sees the campaign as an effort to sway U.S. and EU views regarding Türkiye’s claims in the Aegean in a misleading manner.
According to Kathimerini, Steptoe & Johnson will produce a report supporting Greece’s assertions for approximately $70,000, and the total payment to the law firm is undisclosed.
Greece considered it encouraging that the U.S. Patent and Trade Office requested additional information in February to halt the patent process. Nonetheless, a final decision is unlikely until 2025.
The EU in July last year approved the trademark "TurkAegean."
At the time, Greece’s top EU official, European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas, demanded the bloc’s decision be reviewed. Schinas said the EU body has failed to properly publicize Ankara’s request to use the term in the tourism campaign.
With long-standing issues between Ankara and Athens in mind, the campaign was commented on by some Greek analysts and politicians as a political step. At the same time, Türkiye says it aims to make the Aegean – on which the country has a coastline of more than 2,800 kilometers (1,740 miles) – more attractive for visitors coming to the country just as much as those visiting Greece.
The Aegean has long been at the center of territorial sovereignty disputes of varying degrees between the two countries.
The armed forces of the two NATO allies have been chiefly accusing one another of violating air, land or water delineations. But, at the same time, there is a long list of disputes, from the problematic status and militarization of the Aegean islands to the deadlock on the island of Cyprus and the hydrocarbon research activities in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The TurkAegean promotion campaign focuses on regions with a rich history and renowned beaches – almost 250 Blue Flag certified.
The regions of Datça, Foça, Çeşme, Didim, Urla, Seferihisar, Akyaka, Cunda, Ayvalık, Bodrum, Kuşadası and Assos, in particular, stand out in the campaign.