THE NEW INDUSTRIAL
PROPERTY LAW
Since1964
THE NEW INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY LAW
The new industrial property law entered into force on January 10th, 2017. The law includes all industrial
rights, traditional specialties and brings many amendments and improvements. With the new law, name of
The Turkish Patent Institute, has been changed as “Turkish Patent and Trademark Office”.
Applicable Law For Prior Applications
Trademark and Design
• National and international applications filed before the new law, will be finalized within the scope of provisions of legal text in force at the moment of application or nationalization.
National Patent and Utility Models
• National applications filed before the new law, will be finalized within the scope of legal text in force at the moment of application.
• The legal text in force at the moment of main patent application will be applied on a request for a patent of addition application or its conversion in to an independent patent even after it is granted.
• Legal text in force at the moment of application will be applied;
• For convertions between patent and utility models,
• For conversion of patent granted without examination into a patent granted with examination,
• For annulment of patent and utility model.
Nationalized Patent and Utility Model Applications
• Legal text in force at the moment of nationalization will be applied for nationalized patent and utility model applications filed through international or regional treaties.
Patent and Utility Models
• New provisions will be applied for granted patents and utility models except following conditions:
• Opposition and examination of opposition process,
• Invalidation,
• Price determination for inventions of employees of public institutions,
• Methods and rates regarding the revenue shares between universities and the inventors.
Geographical Indications
• National applications filed before the new law, will be finalized within the scope of legal text in force at the moment of application.
• Geographical indications whose applications filed in accordance with earlier Decree-Law but haven’t yet been published, will be published pursuant to new law provisions, however oppositions will be evaluated within the scope of legal text in force at the moment of application.
What’s New About Trademarks?
• Color and sound trademarks are now defined as registerable trademarks. By this means it will be easier to file applications for color and sound trademarks. Also, with the new definition of trademarks, applications for motion trademarks will be possible.
• New trademark applications fall under the grounds for a refusal based on similarity, can benefit from a letter of consent/co-existence agreement in order to get registered since the new law paves the way to it. Letter of consent/co-existence agreement must be notarized as a formal validity requirement.
• Opposition period of trademark applications has been decreased from 3 months to 2 months.
• A new non-use defense mechanism has been implemented against the opposing party for a trademark application. The applicant has the right to request from the complainant to prove the use of the trademark which is subject to the opposition or to have proper reasons for non-use, if the trademark registration is older than 5 years. Yet one month which can be extended into 2 months will be given to submit the proof of use.
• In addition to the protection of registered well-known trademarks, unregistered well-known trademarks will also be under the protection of new law. Unregistered trademark owners will have the right to oppose
identical or similar trademarks that are applied for similar or identical goods and services.
• The use of trademarks for products of accessory, spare and equivalent parts where intended use has to be indicated, cannot be prevented.
• If a trademark application includes a registered geographical indication or comprises of a registered geographical indication, it can be rejected by ex-officio similarity examinations. By this means, it is aimed to prevent the usage of geographical indications as trademarks by third parties.
• Exhaustion of rights applied nationally, will be applied internationally. Thus, rights are exhausted once the product has been sold by the IP owner or with his consent in any part of the world.
What’s New About Patents and Utility Models?
• Patents without examination will no longer exist.
• Post grant opposition is introduced. Opposition can be filed in 6 months after the publication of the granted patent. This provision is not valid for utility models.
• Scope of inventions to be protected with utility model has been rearranged. Following subjects will not be able to be protected with utility models:
• Inventions regarding chemical and biological materials or methods, or products acquired through these methods,
• Inventions regarding pharmaceutical materials or methods or, products acquired through these methods,
• Biotechnological inventions,
• Methods or products acquired through these methods.
• Legal measures will exist for infringement of patent rights, however criminal measures won’t.
• Inventions of university scientific staff emerged from scientific work and research at universities will be evaluated as employee invention.
• Inventions emerged from publicly funded projects must be reported to the public institute, and within
a year whether the ownership of the invention is claimed must be declared.
• Exhaustion of rights applied nationally, will be applied internationally. Thus, rights are exhausted once the product has been sold by the IP owner or with his consent in any part of the world.
What’s New About Designs?
• Unregistered design protection is introduced and will be covered under the new law. To benefit from unregistered design protection, the designs must be new and have an individual character. The protection is for a period of three years from the date on which the design was first made available to the public.
• Novelty search will be carried out in addition to formal examination.
• The design of a part of a joint product will accepted to be new and to have an individual character if it is visible when attached on joint product.
• Opposition period for design applications is decreased from 6 months to 3 months.
• Right owner of designs of university scientific staff emerged from scientific work and research at universities, are universities.
• Exhaustion of rights applied nationally, will be applied internationally. Thus, rights are exhausted once the product has been sold by the IP owner or with his consent in any part of the world.
• Legal measures will exist for infringement of design rights, however criminal measures won’t.
What’s New About Geographical Indications?
• Traditional specialties are protectable under the new law. Traditional specialties are defined as names proved to be used for minimum 30 years to describe a product in related market traditionally.
• Geographical indications will be published in bulletins of Turkish Patent and Trademark Office.
• Opposition period for published applications is decreased from 6 months to 3 months.
• Usage of a geographical indication logo which will be placed on the product is introduced.
• Functioning of control mechanism has become efficient and obligation of auditing period is decreased from 10 years to 1 year.
ankara patent bureau limited
head: bestekar sokak, no: 10, 06680 kavaklidere, ankara, TURKEY t: +90 312 417 2323 (pbx) f: +90 312 425 5804
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