"Summit on Artificial Intelligence, Industry 4.0. and Intellectual Property Law", organized by Research and Application Center for Intellectual and Industrial Rights (FISAUM) of Ankara University in Turkey, will be held on February 12th, 2018. During the summit, the facts of AI and Industry 4.0.will be academically discussed for the first time in Turkey in the context of general legal aspects and of intellectual property law in particular.
Turkey tops trademark filings in Europe in 2017
Prof. Dr. Habib Asan, the President of Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT), has given an interview regarding the industrial property activities and statistics in 2017 to Turkey's official news agency, Anadolu Agency (AA), on 26 January 2017.
Here are the highlights from the President's interview with the AA:
- Total 121,108 trademark applications, (of which 106,099 are domestic and 15,009 are foreign) were filed last year. 88% of total trademark applications are of native origin and the number of the application increased 13% compared to the previous year 2016. With these figures, Turkey has once again become the country in Europe where the highest numbers of trademark applications were filed the last year.
- Total of 19,283 patent applications were filed with TURKPATENT in 2017, of which 8,625 are domestic and 10,658 are foreign. With those figures, domestic patent applications increased by 34 percent compared to 2016. The increase rate is a pleasing development, as total 50 thousand patent applications are aimed for till 2023 in parallel to Turkey's 2023 goals declared by the Turkish Government.
- Total 3,320 utility model applications, of which 3,256 are domestic and 64 are foreign, were filed in 2017.
- Total 46,853 design applications, of which 39,172 are domestic and 1,066 are foreign (made through WIPO), were filed in 2017 in Turkey.
- Total 12,424 patent applications (1,964 domestic and 10,460 foreign), 85,573 trademark applications (77,394 domestic and 8,179 foreign), 44,214 design applications (37,280 domestic and 6,934 foreign), and 2,088 utility model applications (2,014 domestic and 74 foreign) were registered in 2017 in Turkey.
- TURKPATENT performed 7,259 searches and examinationS in 2017.
- Turkey has issued important laws and regulations in 2017, such as Industrial Property Code.
Turkish Plant Variety Office has announced its new schedule of fees for 2018.
Turkish Plant Variety Office (also known as Central Directorate for Seed Registry and Certification (TTSMO)) announces its schedule of fees at the beginning of each year. The Office has announced its new schedule of fees on 17 January 2018. The schedule of fees can be found by clicking here.
The Office has also published a separate announcement regarding the requirement for the payment of annuities of the plant varieties which were registered in the earlier years. It calls the owners of the plant varieties to pay the annuities till 31 January 2018 and inform the Office of the payment. The Office has published a list covering all the registered plant varieties and the required amount of annuities for each registered varieties.
Twitter's long struggle to register Periscope in Turkey
Twitter is not able to register its brand Periscope for live broadcasting and streaming services in Turkey.
The recent court decision has confirmed that the trademark application filed by Twitter for Periscope is not allowable due to earlier registered trademark rights of third parties.
Twitter filed a trademark application in Classes 9, 35, 38, 41, 42, 45 for Periscope in 2015 in Turkey. Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT) only allowed registration of the mark "Periscope" for the services commercial data analysis and commercial advisory in Class 35 after ex-officio decision based on absolute grounds and long opposition proceedings due to oppositions filed by third parties. Subsequently, Twitter filed revocation action against the decision of TURKPATENT before Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights Civil Court of Ankara (Court No. 2 - First Instance Court). The First Instance Court has recently confirmed that the decision of TURKPATENT is in place, and refused Twitter's claims. Twitter can bring the case to Second Instance Court for further consideration.
Twitter is currently unable to broadcast under the brand name of Periscope in Turkey. Instead, it uses the brand name Scope, Twitter user name @prscptr and the domain name www.pscp.tv for its live stream and broadcasting services in Turkey due to another ongoing court action (infringement action) filed by a local company holding trademark registration for Periscope in classes 38 and 41 since 2010.
Turkish Patent and Trademark Office has released a revised version of its Strategy Document setting out its objectives for the next 5 years.
Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT) is regularly preparing and releasing strategy documents setting out objectives and goals every five years.
The Strategy Document for five years had been already issued early last year. However, as the Law regarding the establishment and tasks of the Office changed just at the beginning of the last year (on January 10, 2017), it has become a requirement to revise the Strategy Document issued in 2017 in compliance with the new obligations of TURKPATENTbrought by the new Law.
The revised Strategy Document will be implemented between 2018 and 2022 in order to plan and carry out the works during the subject years.
While preparing the Strategy Document, the plans of earlier years, opinions of the stakeholders, the surveys, and workshops have been taken into consideration.
The Document states that TURKPATENT will perform its objectives and take necessary actions in compliance with its mission and vision statements as quoted below:
Mission
Contributing to the effective protection and commercialization of industrial property rights and serving to the economic and technological development of our country by increasing the awareness of industrial property in all layers of the society and being active in international platforms in the field of industrial property.Vision
Being an Office contributing to the improvement of Turkey's intellectual capital and innovation capacity and giving direction to national and international policy in industrial property
The Document specifically emphasizes the values of the TURKPATENT, which are reliability, impartiality, customer orientation, quality, effective and fast service, solution-oriented approach, openness to change and innovation, employee oriented approach, openness to cooperating with stakeholders, efficiency in international relations, accessibility, and states that the objectives of the Plan will be realized on the basis of those values adopted by the Office.
Also, the Document makes a comprehensive analysis regarding the current situation, comprising historical developments, laws in force, services currently provided by the Office, the position of the stakeholders, the inner structure of TURKPATENT, and outside conditions affecting the industrial property in Turkey and around the world.
After comprehensively analyzing the current situation and affairs, the Document sets out the objectives, goals and indicators and strategies. It makes 5 objectives as summarized below:
- Carrying out the services of the industrial property rights qualified, effectively and fastly.
- Raising the awareness of industrial property rights in the public.
- Making the industrial property rights into the economic benefits.
- Actively taking place in the international arena and guiding to the country in the industrial property issues.
- Making the institutional capacity strengthened.
To realize these five objectives, TURKPATENT is projected to take actions within the scope of 17 goals as summarized below:
- Increasing customer satisfaction
- Enhancing the alignment with the judicial decisions
- Providing all the services electronically
- Developing the system of the attorneys
- Raising the awareness of the industrial property in the public.
- Supporting scientific studies in the field of industrial property.
- Commercializing the inventions
- Promoting the branding
- Increasing the effectiveness of geographical indications and traditional products.
- Promoting the creation of the original designs
- Increasing the capacity to establish international patent search and examination
- Increasing the effectiveness of platforms gathering the industrial property stakeholders
- Participating in the International events to increase the effectiveness of the country on intellectual property matters
- Consolidating the human resources infrastructure.
- Strengthening IT infrastructure
- Strengthening IT infrastructure
- Developing a planned institutional culture
The Strategy Document also makes reference to the 10th Development Plan of Turkey setting out the following objectives.
- The main objective is to increase the contribution of intellectual property rights and products subject to these rights to the development process, through creating a common and socially adopted system for the use and protection of intellectual property rights.
- Adequate human and institutional capacity will be created in the relevant units of public sector dealing with protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, in particular in the judiciary, customs and constabulary.
- Service capacity will be improved in technology transfer and innovation centres to make businesses benefit effectively from the intellectual property rights system and its subsidies.
- The effectiveness of existing mechanisms in the commercialization of intellectual property rights will be improved.
- Public awareness of the intellectual property rights system will be increased by promotional and educational activities at all levels.
- Identification, monitoring and evaluation of contribution of the works and products subject to intellectual property rights to the national economy will be provided, and information and data infrastructure will be strengthened.
The Document finally sets forth the financial resources to realize the objectives and goals set by TURKPATENT.
To summarize, TURKPATENT aims to improve the capacity and qualification of its human resources, provide all its services electronically and raise public awareness on the intellectual and industrial property issues within next 5 years.
The text of the Strategy Document can be downloaded by clicking here.




