Intellectual
Property

Trademark protection should be planned as a whole, from determining the sign to be filed and the list of goods and services through post-registration use, monitoring, renewal and infringement proceedings. A similarity search should cover not only the identical word but also visual, phonetic and conceptual proximity, the relationship between goods and services, prior rights and the target market.

Our work in the trademark area covers TÜRKPATENT filings, oppositions to publication and responses to them, proof of use, the Re-examination and Evaluation Board (YİDK), actions to annul an Office decision, trademark infringement, unfair competition, invalidation, administrative revocation, well-known trademarks, bad-faith filings, counterfeit products, digital use, licensing, assignment and international trademark protection.

Legal services and acting as a trademark attorney are separate authorizations. For proceedings before the Office conducted through a representative, the authority and appointment of the registered trademark attorney are checked. Legal review, contract and litigation services are planned together with this representation arrangement.

For detailed information on this area, you can review our Trademark Law page.

Monitoring use and time periods after trademark registration is part of the protection plan. Revocation may come into question for a trademark that has not been put to genuine use in Türkiye within five years of registration without a proper reason, or whose use has been suspended for an uninterrupted period of five years.

• Organizing invoices, packaging, catalogs, advertising, sales and distribution records by date, country and connection to the goods and services.
• A request for proof of use and a defense of non-use in an opposition to publication, an invalidation action or an infringement action.
• Comparing the registered form of the trademark with the sign actually used.
• Examining use by the licensee, use for export and proper reasons for non-use.
• Tracking ten-year protection periods, renewals and register changes.

Being on the register or having a single image online is not regarded as sufficient proof of genuine use in every file. Evidence is assessed with respect to the specific period and the goods and services.

Revocation and invalidation of a trademark rest on different grounds and filing routes. TÜRKPATENT is competent for revocation requests under Article 26 of the SMK, such as non-use, the trademark becoming a generic name or misleading use. The administrative revocation system applied since January 10, 2024 should not be confused with the invalidation action heard in court.

• Determining the ground for revocation or invalidation and the right to file the request.
• Specifying the goods and services to which the request will be directed.
• The rights holder recorded in the register, the period of use, and the response and evidence schedule.
• Appeal within the Office against TÜRKPATENT decisions and, if the conditions are met, recourse to the courts.
• The effective date of the decision, ongoing contracts and related actions.

Invalidation based on a prior right or a ground that bars registration is requested from the court. The filing route and time limit are determined after seeing the reasoned decision and the service document.

Being allocated a domain name, or obtaining a company name or a social media username, does not by itself amount to trademark registration. In a dispute, the prior right, the sign used, the field of activity and the nature of the use are examined together.

• Conditions for applying to the authorized dispute resolution service provider under TRABİS for .tr domain names.
• UDRP and the relevant international dispute resolution rules for domain names to which they apply.
• Allegations of rights infringement involving fake accounts, misleading sales pages, advertising keywords and product listings.
• The different filing routes for transfer or cancellation of a domain name and for claims for compensation and injunctions.
• Proof of ownership of rights and of use for platform notices, counter-notices and objections.

A platform’s removal of content does not have the same effect as a court decision. Before filing, URLs, dates, account details and listing records are preserved; the interaction between a judicial filing and an alternative resolution route is assessed.

For detailed information on this area, you can review our Domain Name Disputes and Digital Brand Protection page.

In patent and utility model proceedings, the timing and content of the technical disclosure, the novelty search, the choice of the type of protection, the right to file, the scope of the claims, search and examination reports, third-party observations, and the risks of invalidation and infringement are assessed together. Because disclosing an invention at a trade fair, in a presentation, an article, a sale, an offer, online or in an investment discussion may affect the novelty assessment, confidentiality and the filing sequence should be established before the product is made available to the public.

Our work in the patent and utility model area:

• Legal assessment of the preliminary search and the protectability strategy
• Identifying the inventor, the applicant and the chain of rights
• Coordinating the technical description and claims work with the patent attorney and technical experts
• Comparing national, European and PCT filing options
• Appeals against TÜRKPATENT decisions and related actions
• Infringement of a patent or utility model right and declaration of non-infringement
• Invalidation, ownership and usurpation (gasp) disputes
• License, assignment, pledge, joint development and technology transfer
• Interim injunctions, preservation of evidence, compensation and enforcement of decisions

Technical filing procedures before TÜRKPATENT are carried out in coordination with registered patent attorneys and the relevant technical experts, as the file requires.

A registrability search and freedom to operate (FTO) do not answer the same question. Being able to obtain a patent for an invention does not by itself show that production or sale will not infringe the prior rights of third parties. The valid claims in the target country and the technical features of the product are compared separately.

For detailed information on this area, you can review our Patent and Utility Model Law page.

That an invention is developed by an employee, manager, consultant, academic, student, subcontractor or joint project team does not mean that inventorship and the right of economic use rest with the same person. Notification obligations, the employer’s claim to the right, remuneration, incentives, the project agreement and the conditions of public support must be examined together.

In this context:

• The distinction between a service invention and a free invention
• The employee’s notification of the invention and the employer’s claim to the right
• Disputes over invention remuneration and incentive awards
• University inventions and the rights of higher education institutions
• Technopark, TÜBİTAK, publicly funded project and consortium agreements
• Joint development, background knowledge and ownership of project outputs
• Timing between an academic publication and a patent application
• Intellectual property provisions in consultant, software developer and subcontractor agreements

are assessed.

In design protection, the appearance of the product, novelty and distinctive character, the date of disclosure to the public, the visual representation, the product class, and the information on the designer and the rights holder are important. Features that do not appear in the images or are shown inconsistently may become harder to bring within the scope of protection. A design may also contain elements that can be protected under the provisions on works, trademarks or unfair competition; however, the conditions of each protection must be established separately.

Our work in the design area:

• Design search and registration strategy
• Coordinating single and multiple design applications
• Opposition to design publication and appeals against TÜRKPATENT decisions
• Infringement of registered and unregistered design rights
• Design invalidity, ownership and usurpation disputes
• Fashion, furniture, packaging, jewelry, machine part, interface and industrial product designs
• Design licenses, assignments and international Hague System procedures
• Preservation of evidence, interim injunctions, compensation and unfair competition claims

Registered design protection lasts five years from the filing date; it can be extended to a total of twenty-five years through renewals of five years each. The conditions and scope of protection for an unregistered design are different; the three-year period from the first disclosure to the public in Türkiye and the element of copying are examined separately.

For detailed information on this area, you can review our Design Law and Design Disputes page.

Original topographies that show the three-dimensional arrangement of the layers forming an integrated circuit and meet the statutory requirements may be the subject of registration and protection under special legislation.

Protection under Law No. 5147 relates to the three-dimensional layout of the circuit elements and their connections in a semiconductor product. The originality of the topography, the rights holder, the first commercial use and the time of filing are examined separately from the technical function of the product or rights in software. In registration, license, assignment and unauthorized reproduction allegations, the technical expert opinion and the legal assessment are carried out together.

Copyright is a protection that arises with the creation of the work and grants the author moral and economic rights. As a rule, no constitutive registration before TÜRKPATENT or any other institution is required for protection to begin. Optional record-registration and notarial procedures may facilitate proof in certain cases; however, the status of the work, authorship and the assignment of economic rights are examined separately on the basis of the specific evidence and contracts.

Our work in the copyright law area:

• Determining the status of the work, authorship and related rights
• Establishing, preventing and stopping infringement of economic and moral rights
• Rights of reproduction, distribution, public performance, adaptation and communication to the public
• Publishing, production, license, screenplay, music, photography and advertising agreements
• Architectural project and work disputes
• Rights in software, source code, databases, websites and digital content
• Authorship, producer, performing artist and publisher rights
• Unauthorized use, plagiarism, content removal and access procedures
• Interim injunctions, preservation of evidence, pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages
• Legal assessment of optional or mandatory record-registration procedures

Contracts concerning economic rights must be in writing, and the rights assigned or licensed for use must be specified separately. A commitment to assign rights in a work not yet created is distinguished from an assignment of rights in a completed work. Moral rights are not deemed assigned as a whole in the way economic rights are.

For detailed information on this area, you can review our Copyright and Works of Authorship Law page.

In software and digital products, the person who writes the source code, the person who funds the project, the employer, the customer, the platform operator and the end user may have different rights and obligations. Payment of the price may not mean that the economic rights have been assigned automatically in their entirety. Assignment and license provisions should be drafted together with the right to be used, the term, the country, the medium, sublicensing, source code access, open-source components, updates and exit scenarios.

In this context:

• Software development and license agreements
• Source code, documentation and escrow arrangements
• SaaS, cloud service, API and end-user licenses
• Compliance with open-source licenses and the component inventory
• Rights to use databases, datasets and content
• Rights in games, mobile applications, websites and user interfaces
• Contractual risks regarding the artificial intelligence model, training data, output and third-party rights
• Assignment of rights from employees and independent developers
• Planning trademark, design, patent and copyright protection together for digital products

are examined. In artificial intelligence products, the assessment of authorship and infringement is made concrete according to how the system used operates, the human contribution, the data source, the contract and the law of the relevant country.

Geographical indications do not give an exclusive right to a single business the way an individual trademark does. The registration certificate and the inspection system that show the product’s geographical link, production method and distinctive characteristics are taken as the basis. The nature of the applicant, the product group, the geographical boundary, the production method, the inspecting authority and the form of use must be clearly determined before filing.

Our work in this area:

• The distinction between designation of origin (menşe adı), indication of source (mahreç işareti) and traditional product name
• Legal review of the application file, the product specification and the inspection system
• Application and opposition procedures before TÜRKPATENT
• Use of a registered name that is contrary to the specification or misleading
• Disputes concerning the emblem and the rules of use
• Legal relations among producer groups, chambers, municipalities and other applicants
• Protection abroad of names from Türkiye and protection in Türkiye of foreign geographical indications
• Matters of collective use and inspection that must not be confused with individual license systems

A geographical indication and a traditional product name cannot be assigned, licensed or made the subject of a pledge, as individual industrial property rights can. The right of use is assessed together with production in line with the registration conditions and the inspection system.

New plant varieties are protected, unlike other intellectual property rights, within a special body of legislation and an administrative system. The right to apply, the novelty, distinctness, uniformity and stability of the variety, the variety name, technical examination, registration, annual fees, licenses and the unauthorized use of production or propagating material are assessed according to the nature of the file.

In this context, contracts among breeders, rights holders, producers, licensees and seed companies; ownership in varieties developed by a research institution or an employee; and disputes arising from the production, sale, assignment and use of a protected variety are handled together with the relevant technical and administrative procedures. In application and register procedures, the current practices of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry are taken as the basis.

The existence of an intellectual property right and the ability to use that right commercially are different matters. In the agreement, the subject of the right, the rights holder, the form of use, the term, the territory, the sector, exclusivity, sublicensing, consideration, reporting, oversight, improvements, authority in the event of infringement and use after the agreement ends must be clearly regulated.

The main agreements we prepare and review:

• Trademark, patent, design, software and copyright licenses
• Assignment agreements for intellectual and industrial property rights
• Know-how and technology transfer agreements
• Joint research and development agreements
• University–industry cooperation and consortium agreements
• Software development, SaaS, maintenance and support agreements
• Publishing, production, music, photography, advertising and content production agreements
• Intellectual property provisions in franchise, distributorship, dealership and manufacturing agreements
• Confidentiality, data room, prototype and trial agreements
• Coexistence, consent, settlement and delimitation agreements
• Royalty, minimum consideration, turnover share, audit and tax provisions
• Escrow, source code delivery and business continuity arrangements

Agreements should state not only the name of the right but the concrete scope of the authority to use it; the formal requirements, registration in the register, effects on third parties, competition law, tax and private international law consequences must be assessed separately.

Trade secret protection requires, in addition to the information being confidential and having economic value, that concrete measures be taken to protect that confidentiality. Customer lists, a pricing model, a production method, a formula, an algorithm, source code, supply information, bid data and a business plan are not automatically regarded as trade secrets in every case. The manner in which the information is accessed, with whom it is shared and how its confidentiality is actually protected are decisive.

Within the protective framework:

• Classification of confidential information and a trade secret inventory
• Confidentiality, non-disclosure and purpose-limited use agreements
• Access rules for employees, consultants, investors, suppliers and project collaborators
• Authorization matrix, record keeping and protocols on leaving employment
• Delivery arrangements for samples, prototypes and technical documents
• Review of the validity of non-compete clauses and employee obligations
• Allegations of unlawful acquisition, copying, disclosure or use
• Preservation of evidence, interim injunctions, unfair competition and compensation claims

are assessed.

The intellectual property value of companies does not consist only of the number of registrations shown on the register. The fit of the rights with actual activity, whether they are recorded in the name of the correct company, the renewal and fee status, evidence of use, employee and contractor agreements, licenses, open-source components, disputes and protection in the target market must be examined together.

In portfolio and legal review work:

• An inventory of trademark, patent, design, domain name and copyright assets
• Verification of ownership and the chain of assignments
• Checking register entries, time limits, renewals and fees
• Examining licenses, pledges, attachments and other restrictions
• Auditing employee, developer, agency and consultant agreements
• Identifying evidence of use and the risks of non-protection
• Existing or potential infringement and invalidation disputes
• Intellectual property rights in M&A, investment, financing and corporate restructurings
• Conditions precedent to closing, representations and warranties, and indemnification provisions
• Updating register and contract records after the transfer

are addressed. When an economic valuation is needed, coordination is provided with the financial adviser (mali müşavir), finance expert, patent valuation expert and relevant sector professionals; the legal review and the economic valuation are kept separate.

A change of rights holder or the use of a right as security is addressed together with respect to the contract, form, register and effects on third parties. That a trademark or patent is recorded in the name of a company shareholder does not mean that the right belongs to the company.

• The formal requirements, scope and register entry of assignment and license documents.
• Transfer by inheritance, multiple rights holders and the representation arrangement.
• The effect of pledges, security, attachments and existing licenses on the transaction.
• The chain of rights, closing conditions, representations and responsibilities in an investment or company transfer.
• Updating register, license, domain name and authorized account records after the transaction.

The special regime of geographical indications and traditional product names and the distinction between economic and moral rights in copyright remain unaffected. Legal review does not replace an independent economic valuation.

In an intellectual property dispute, the first question is not only “is there similarity?” The validity of the right, the scope of protection, the rights holder, the nature of the act, whether the use is commercial, exceptions, prior rights, exhaustion of the right, the contractual relationship, fault, damage and evidence are examined together.

The main claims that may be considered depending on the specific case:

• Declaration of infringement of the right
• Prevention of probable infringement
• Cessation of ongoing infringement
• Elimination of the consequences of the infringement
• Declaration of non-infringement
• Transfer of ownership of the right or of the application
• Invalidation or administrative revocation of the registration
• Pecuniary damage and loss of profit
• Non-pecuniary damages and reputational harm, if the conditions are met
• Calculation based on the license fee
• A decision on products, packaging, labels and means of production
• Publication of the judgment
• Claims for breach of contract, contractual penalty and rendering of accounts
• Litigation costs and attorney fee award

The claims vary according to the type of right. The provisions on trademarks, patents, designs, copyright, trade secrets and unfair competition must not be substituted for one another; the legal and evidentiary basis of each claim must be established separately.

If infringing products are put on the market, evidence is deleted, production or sales records are lost or the infringement spreads quickly online, waiting for the final decision may make it harder to protect the right. For this reason, the need for preservation of evidence and an interim injunction is assessed at the first stage of the file.

Depending on the specific case:

• Temporary suspension of the infringing act
• Measures concerning products, packaging, labels and means of production
• Prevention of production, sale, import or export
• Preservation of evidence at the workplace, in a warehouse, at a trade fair or in a digital environment
• Protection of commercial books, invoices, stock and sales records
• Interim measures concerning an e-commerce listing, a domain name or social media content
• Temporary suspension of customs procedures
• Assessment of the security and counter-security

may come into question.

A screenshot alone is not always sufficient. The URL, date and time, account details, source, product sample, test purchase, invoice, platform correspondence and the manner in which the digital record was obtained must be documented together. The evidence-gathering process is planned with regard to personal data, the confidentiality of communications and the principles of lawfully obtained evidence.

When a measure is requested, ownership of the right, the likelihood of infringement, urgency, prima facie proof and the security requirements are made concrete. The time limits provided for enforcing the decision and, where necessary, for filing the main action are tracked separately; an injunction request does not guarantee the final outcome.

For a person who has received a formal notice or a lawsuit, the review does not begin by assuming that the other party’s claim is justified. The validity of the right, prior rights, the limits of protection, permission to use, exceptions, exhaustion and the proportionality of the requested measure are assessed separately.

• Grounds for invalidity specific to trademarks, patents, utility models and designs.
• The status of the true rights holder, inventor or designer; claims of usurpation and for transfer of the application.
• Examination of the technical claim, the overall impression of the design or the likelihood of confusion between signs.
• The defense of non-use, prior use, permission and contractual limits on use.
• An action for a declaration of non-infringement, if the conditions are met; its procedural relationship to a pending infringement action.
• Objection to the injunction, security, counterclaims and effects on commercial activity.

Documents and product samples are preserved unaltered. Responding to a formal notice does not by itself stop the time limits relating to a lawsuit or Office proceedings.

In assessing compensation, it is necessary to determine not only the infringing act but also the damage, the causal link, the relevant conditions of liability and the calculation method. Industrial property rights, copyright, unfair competition and breach of contract are not subject to the same calculation regime.

• Actual damage, lost profit and, if the conditions are met, reputational or non-pecuniary harm.
• Whether the options of the rights holder’s probable income, the infringer’s profit or a hypothetical license fee are applicable.
• Invoices, production, stock, sales, cost and commercial book records.
• Data suitable for court-appointed expert examination by license rate, market, period and product.
• The different conditions for fee and compensation claims in copyright.
• Prevention of double recovery for the same damage; interest, expenses and the scope of the claims.

There is no fixed compensation or automatic multiple payment outcome for every infringement. The type and amount of the claim are formed on the basis of the evidence and the applicable provision.

Products suspected of being counterfeit or infringing may enter circulation not only through physical stores, production sites and warehouses but also through e-commerce sites, online marketplaces, social media accounts and cross-border shipments. A platform notice, a customs application, an interim injunction, a civil action and a criminal complaint may affect one another in the same incident.

In these procedures:

• Whether the product is counterfeit, produced without authorization or genuine
• The trademark, design, patent, copyright and unfair competition bases
• Exhaustion of the right and parallel import defenses
• The position of the producer, importer, seller, platform and service provider
• Suspension at customs and sample examination
• Platform notice and counter-notice procedures
• The TRABİS Dispute Resolution Mechanism for .tr domain names and judicial filing options
• The relevant alternative dispute resolution rules for international domain names
• Proof of the quantity of sales and stock
• Consistency of statements in the civil and criminal files
• Proportionality, security and effects on commercial activity

are assessed together.

Intellectual and industrial property rights are, as a rule, territorial. A registration or protection in Türkiye does not automatically produce the same result in every country. In export, e-commerce, production, license, investment and franchise plans, target countries should be selected taking into account the filing time, budget, market priority, production location and dispute risk.

In the international strategy:

• International trademark protection through the Madrid System
• Patent filing options, including the PCT system and the European patent
• International design protection through the Hague System
• European Union trademark and design protection
• International conventions on copyright and related rights
• International protection of geographical indications and designations of origin
• Priority rights, choice of countries and the filing calendar
• Responses to foreign office decisions and coordination of local attorneys
• Cross-border licenses, assignments, tax and applicable law
• Recognition and enforcement of foreign court judgments or arbitral awards

are assessed. International filing systems do not create a single “world registration”; protection in the designated countries arises according to the conditions of the relevant system and the law of each country.

A counterfeit product and a genuine product placed on the market by the rights holder or with its permission are not assessed in the same way. The exhaustion of industrial property rights is linked to the placing of the relevant product on the market and the consent of the rights holder.

• The authenticity of the product, the supply chain, the serial number and the documents on placing on the market.
• Alteration, impairment, repackaging or misleading presentation of the product.
• The difference between trademark use within the necessary limits of promotion and use that creates an impression of a connection.
• Separating the industrial property, contract, competition, customs and product safety rules in parallel imports.

That a product is genuine does not mean that all import and sales conditions are met; nor does not being an authorized distributor, by itself, turn every sale into a rights infringement.

The route for resolving a dispute is selected according to the type of right, the relief sought, the parties’ power of disposition and the valid contract provisions. Not every intellectual property dispute is heard in the same court or is arbitrable.

• Determining the court with subject-matter and territorial jurisdiction according to the nature of the claim.
• The scope of mediation as a condition precedent to litigation for commercial monetary claims; its relationship to other claims concerning the right.
• Settlement and negotiation options in a dispute over a license fee, performance of the contract or an infringement allegation.
• The arbitration agreement, arbitrability and the limits on the validity of a registration.
• Separating the appeal against TÜRKPATENT and YİDK decisions from court review.
• Appeal to the regional court of appeal (istinaf), cassation appeal (temyiz) if the conditions are met, and enforcement of the judgment; recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments.

The need for an interim injunction or preservation of evidence may also be assessed while negotiations are ongoing. The outcome depends on the facts of the file, the evidence and the assessment of the competent authority.