TURKPATENT released Turkish industrial property statistics of 2021

Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT) has released statistics of 2021. A total number of 248,597 domestic industrial property applications were filed in 2021, including 8,439 patent applications, 4,418 utility model applications, 176,493 trademark applications and 59,247 design applications.

Compared to the previous year 2020, it has been observed that there was an increase of 3 percent in domestic patent applications, 24 percent in domestic utility model applications, 13 percent in domestic trademark applications and 41 percent in domestic design applications.

When domestic and foreign applications are combined, while the total number of domestic and foreign filings increased by 24 percent for utility models, 12 percent for trademarks and 39 percent for designs, the number of patents decreased.

19 universities took place among the first 50 entities to apply for domestic patents in 2021. 11% of domestic patent applications were filed by universities.

The sectors with the highest number of domestic patent applications in 2021 were respectively followings:

• Medical and surgical equipment and orthopedic vehicles (609 patent applications)
• Office machinery and computers' (534 patent applications)
• Household appliances (523 patent applications)
• Motor land vehicles trailer and semi-trailer (483 patent applications)
• Pharmaceutical products, medicinal chemicals and botanical products (469 patent applications).

352 geographical indications were registered in 2021. Thus, the total number of registered geographical indications increased to 990 in Turkey. The provinces with the highest number of geographical indication applications in 2021 were Erzurum with 61 applications, Van with 34 applications and Gaziantep with 28 applications. Turkey has 7 geographical indications registered with the European Union. These are "Antep baklavası (Antep baklava)", "Aydın inciri (Aydın fig)", "Aydın kestanesi (Aydın chestnut)", "Bayramiç Beyazı", "Malatya kayısısı (Malatya apricot)", "Milas zeytinyağı (Milas olive oil)" and "Taşköprü sarımsağı (Taşköprü garlic)".

Turkey ranked 14th in the world in patent applications, 7th in trademark applications, 4th in design applications, and 9th in general industrial property filings at the national level.

Turkey has maintained its position as the country with the highest number of trademark applications in Europe since 2011. On the other hand, TURKPATENT became among the top 10 institutions that issued the most international search reports (ISR) for PCT applications last year.

TURKPATENT's statistics can be found here.

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TURKPATENT amended its procedure for change of name, address and company type

Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT) has made some procedural changes for recording changes of names, kinds and addresses of applicants and right holders as well as assigning customer numbers.

In the new procedure, TURKPATENT will no longer request the addresses of local persons (natural or legal) when filing applications as they will be automatically fetched from the Central Registry Number System (MERSİS), Turkish registry system of legal entities. Accordingly, the practice for change of address for local persons has been terminated.

In addition, TURKPATENT will no longer request any evidence for changing the names of the local persons as it will use the MERSIS database to confirm the change of name. In this regard, a simple request will be sufficient to record change of name for local persons. However, it will be necessary to submit evidence for recording change of names and company types of foreign entities.

Meanwehile, TURKPATENT will no longer assign a customer number for local natural or legal persons, instead using the Turkish Identification Number (T.C. Kimlik Numarası) for local natural persons and the tax number for local legal entities to identify them. On the other hand, TURKPATENT will continue assigning a number for foreign natural and legal persons, which is hereafter named "Person Number" (earlier called "Customer Number").

These procedural changes are especially important for local persons’ business, because they will any longer need to submit less information for IP filings and no documents for recording any changes. These changes will also allow TURKPATENT to keep consistent and up-to-date records regarding the right holders and fast process any changes when requested

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TÜRKPATENT made COVID-19 restrictions on its premises

Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TÜRKPATENT) has temporarily discontinued its information help desk and will not accept visitors on its premises due to novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The stakeholders will be able to get information and response to their inquiries by calling call center of the Office.

As TÜRKPATENT has recently migrated all its services to electronic environment (EPATS), the applicants and attorneys will be able to file all the IP applications and lodge any requests by electronic means without experiencing any interruption of services.

TÜRKPATENT is fully operative and has not yet notified of any instances such as interruption of services, temporary closure or extension of time for deadlines.

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Physical filing route for industrial property rights closed in Turkey

Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT) has recently announced it will close physical filing route for the industrial property rights (patents, trademarks, designs etc.). Accordingly, it will not be possible to physically (non-electronically) file the applications and post-filing demands as from January 01, 2020.

It will be mandatory to file all the applications and demands through EPATS which is the newly introduced web-based electronic filing system of TURKPATENT. The applicants and the patent and trademark attorneys will enter the EPATS via their passwords of e-Government or other methods such as mobile signature, electronic signature, internet banking.

TURKPATENT has issued this decision pursuant to Article 160 of the Turkish Industrial Property Law (Law No. 6769) after completing the technical requirements for the electronic filing system.

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TURKPATENT updated the online patent search tool

Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT) has made a long-awaited update on the patent search and file inspection tool on its website. The update has introduced a new interface and functionalities to the patent search and online file inspection tool.

One of the new features put into service by this update is the possibility to access to the patent documents and files by online. Thus, applicants, patent holders and third parties will be able to inspect the files and documents of the published patent applications and patents by online.

The users will also benefit from detailed search, advanced search, image viewing, and document export functions of the patent search tool.

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Turkish Patent and Trademark Office has published new examination guideline for trademarks

Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT) has published a new examination guideline for trademarks, titled “Trademark Examination Guideline.”

The Guideline, which is a revised version of the Guideline issued in 2011, was prepared based on the decisions of the Board of Appeal of TURKPATENT, the decisions of the Turkish Intellectual Property Courts, the case-law of the Turkish Supreme Court. It also takes into consideration the decisions and practices of the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Thus, the Guideline clarifies many challenging issues with trademark examples in view of the decisions within the scope of the Turkish and European law and practices.

The Guideline covers many aspects of trademarks and guides examiners, applicants and attorneys for evaluating the registrability of the trademarks under the Turkish Industrial Property Law. Specifically, the Guideline provides general approaches regarding identicalness, confusingly similarity, descriptiveness, and distinctiveness issues, non-traditional trademarks, hashtag trademarks and many hot topics.

The Guideline is not a legislative or regulatory document and thus does not have a binding nature, rather remains a document of practice covering various examples and scenarios in the face of the challenging trademark cases.

TURKPATENT states that the Guideline is not a static but dynamic document changing with the new laws, regulations and the case-law in both Turkey and European Union. Therefore, it is stated that the document will be regularly updated to comply with the most recent developments on trademark matters.

The Guideline will be extremely valuable for the examiners and trademark practitioners in Turkey, as the Turkish Industrial Property Law, which came into force in early 2017, has required the trademark examiners and practitioners to develop new approaches on trademark matters.

Download Link: Turkish Trademark Examination Guideline (2019)

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Turkish IP System has become more modern by new amendments

The Implementing Regulation on Industrial Property Code (Reg. No. 30825) has been amended for simplifying the procedures and formalities regarding the rights-cancelling or rights-restricting actions before the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office.

The new amendments came into force after their publication in the Turkish Official Gazette on July 08, 2019 together with a series of amendments which are made in other laws and regulations for reducing the red-tape in the government affairs and simplifying the citizens' business with the government.

After the amendment of the Regulation, the applicants will not be any longer required to submit notarized signature declaration (where the applicant is a natural person) or list of signatures (where the applicant is a legal entity) regarding their actions cancelling, restricting or withdrawing actions regarding their applications, registration or oppositions. Specifically, the notarized signature declaration or notarized list of signatures will not be required for the following actions anymore:

• Partially renewing a trademark (Reg. Rule 19(ç) (d)).
• Withdrawing a trademark application (Reg. Rule 22(ç) (d)).
• Cancelling trademark rights (Reg. Rule 22(ç) (d)).
• Withdrawing an opposition (Reg. Rule 22(c) (ç)).
• Cancelling rights for geographical indications (Reg. Rule 46(c)).
• Withdrawing an opposition regarding an design application (Reg. Rule 66(c) (ç)).
• Partially renewing a design registration (Reg. Rule 67(c) (ç)).
• Withdrawing a design application or cancelling a design registration (Reg. Rule 110(2)).
• Withdrawing a patent application or cancelling patent rights.

In the first version of the Regulation which was put into force on 24 April 2017 after the introduction of the Industrial Property Code on 10 January 2017, many formalities requiring notarization had been already removed.The recent amendments have further modernized the IP system and made it more applicant-friendly.

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TURKPATENT has made substantive discounts on search and examination reports

Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT) has significantly discounted the official fees for search and examination reports in order to reduce patent and utility model registration costs.

The discounted fees will be limited to a certain number of requests for search and examination as follows:

- 10 requests for real persons,

- 25 requests for legal entities,

- 100 requests for universities.

The discounted fee will be 100 Turkish Lira (20 USD).

Thus, for example, if the applicant is a real person, he/she will be able to benefit from discounted fees up to 20 requests, including 10 for the search reports for patent or utility model applications and 10 for the substantive examination reports for patent or utility model applications.

When the number of requests determined according to the type of applicant is exceeded, the normal fees (if the request is filed through the e-government system) will be applied (590 TL (112 USD) for the search report and 355 TL (67 USD) for the examination report).

In the new schedule of official fees set by TURKPATENT for 2019, it has been noted that the official fees for the European patent validations and PCT national phase entries in Turkey have been substantively increased.

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TURKPATENT has reduced some of official fees up to 40%

Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT) reduced some official fees up to 40%. New fees were published on September 05, 2018 in the Turkish Official fees.

The discount covers patent filing fee, patent registration fee, assignment fee, 1 to 10 years patent annuities, trademark filing fee, trademark registration, trademark renewal fee, design filing fee, design renewal fee.

The discount decision has come forward due to extreme depreciation of Turkish lira. The Turkish lira fell up to 20% versus the dollar last month after President Donald Trump said he would double the rates of tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum.

Reducing the official fees on patents, trademarks and designs, TURKPATENT aims to support the enterprises in their search for protecting their new inventions and brands as well as maintaining their registered ones.

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TURKPATENT established a public company for commercialization of the IP rights

Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT) has established a public company for commercializing the industrial property rights, i.e. patents, utility models, trademarks, designs and geographical signs. The company is named "Turkish Industrial Property Valuation and Consulting Engineering Services Inc. (TÜRKSMD).”

In an interview with Anadolu Agency, the President of TURKPATENT has stated that Turkey has currently 1 million 600 thousand registered industrial property inventory and they are passively staying on the shelves and have not been passed on to the real sector, the established companies will contribute to the transfer to the real sector of the property products.

The objective of TÜRKSMD is to assess industrial property assets of the real and legal entities and ensure commercialization of the patented work growing out of R & D.

Ankara-based Company will provide the following services:

• Providing venture capital, investment trusts, funds, and joint finance to the start-ups supported by angel investors.
• Providing valuation and consultancy services in the field of industrial property, training and accreditation activities for institutions, organizations and initiatives, and expertise services in valuing industrial property rights.
• Preparing feasibility reports for the selection of computer software and hardware for the public, private and legal entities and will provide R & D activities, engineering, consultancy, training, support and service.
• Providing all kinds of engineering services both in Turkey and abroad. TÜRKSMD will provide engineering services for the creation, development and revision of the intellectual and industrial rights, and will carry out the processes by providing advisory services within the registering and protection of the rights.
• Providing consulting services to government agencies, legal entities and real persons through the provision of national and international information on commercial and industrial relations, patents, utility models, trademarks, industrial rights, human relations, business administration, marketing, investment, globalization and finance.
• Conducting researches and preparing reports about the services in foreign countries and will provide consultancy services in the field of software consultancy, patent and trademark valuation services in view of the fields of international law and trade.

In order to realize its aims, TÜRKSMD will establish all kinds of partnerships with domestic and foreign capital companies at home and abroad.

TÜRKSMD will be able to enter the tender in and out of the country and use its rights by establishing facilities, buying, selling, renting businesses, exporting, importing goods and undertaking the projects. The Company will be also able to register and sell these licenses, patents, trademarks, designs and business rights, both directly and indirectly, on behalf of the Company, by the contracts.

Source: A.A.

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Digital Transformation in TURKPATENT

Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT) has announced that "Digital Archive Project", which was launched in 2015 to transfer approximately 65 million page documents in TURKPATENT's archives to electronic media was completed as from the end of 2017.

In the official announcement, it was mentioned that by scanning the physical archives and transferring them to the electronic medium, the physical movement of the files was minimised, as well as a faster and safer environment for the operations has been provided.

TURKPATENT also stated that e-invoices and e-book applications, where software are completed in line with the goal of realising all internal and external services and transactions in an electronic environment, have been also put into use.

According to the announcement, most of the services of TURKPATENT have been integrated into the e-government gate.

"In order to maintain service quality in view of the increasing workload, the works for the modernisation to establish a modular, expandable and scalable structure to meet the needs in the near future have been made. This will provide high performance, uninterrupted communication with the existing structure that has completed its technological lifetime. In the first months of 2018, the project is planned to be put into life." said TURKPATENT.

Source: TURKPATENT

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