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 releases data for 2020 for industrial property filings

Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TÜRKPATENT) announced the industrial property application statistics for 2020.

In 2020, it was noted that there was an increase of 0.7% in domestic patent applications, 23.2% in domestic utility model applications, 30.57% in domestic trademark applications, and 16.64% in domestic design applications compared to the previous year.

Patents

A total number of 7893 patent applications were filed in 2020, 7803 of which were filed by local entities and 90 of which were filed by foreign entities. A decrease of 0.2% was observed in the total number of applications compared to the previous year.

However, only considering the patent applications of local entities, it has been observed that there was an increase of approximately 0.7% in domestic patent applications (7751 in 2019, 7803 in 2020).A total number of 265 international patent applications entered the national phase in Turkey. This represents a decrease of 3.3% compared to the previous year (2019: 274).

A total number of 11828 European patents were validated in Turkey in 2020. This represents 8,8% decrease compared to the previous year (2019: 11828, 2020: 10785). While 10785 of total European patent validations were of foreign origin, 280 of them were of domestic origin.

Utility models

3600 utility model applications were filed in 2020 in Turkey, 3563 of which were filed by local entities and 37 of which were filed by foreign entities.

The total number of utility model applications increased by 22.4% compared to the previous year. Considering the domestic applications only, it was seen that there was an increase of 23.2% in the domestic utility model applications (2892 in 2019, 3563 in 2020).

Trademarks

A total number of 170590 trademark applications were filed in 2020 in Turkey. This represents an increase of 26.97% compared to the previous year. Among the total number of applications, the number of domestic applications was 155913.

The number of domestic applications increased by 30.57% compared to the previous year (2019: 119412).Total 14677 trademark applications of foreign origin were filed in Turkey. 

While 4562 of the trademark applications of foreign origin were filed directly, 10115 of them were filed through the Madrid Protocol. Accordingly, there was a 1.77% decrease in trademark applications of foreign origin compared to the previous year.

Designs

Total 11307 design applications were filed in 2020 in Turkey. Of these design applications, 9948 were of domestic origin, 365 were of foreign origin, and 993 were from The Hague system.

The number of domestic applications increased by 16.64% compared to the previous period. 

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TURKPATENT announced fee changes effective January 01, 2021

Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT) announced new official fees for patents, utility models, trademarks and designs effective January 01, 2021. The fees schedule was published in the Official Gazette on December 30, 2020. 

The official fees for patent, utility models, trademarks and designs have been increased an average 13% for each fee. 

Exceptionally, the official fees related to the provisional protection of European patents, validation of European patents and PCT national phase entries in Turkey have been substantially increased at an average rate of 40%, specifically 1.930 TRY from 1.380 TRY for the provisional protection of the European patents, 3.095 TRY from 2.210 TRY for the validations of the European patents, and 2.015 TRY from 1.440 TRY for the PCT national phase entries respectively.

The other frequently paid fees have become as follows: 

• Filing patent application: 55 TRY
• Filing utility model application: 55 TRY
• Filing trademark application: 280 TRY per class
• Filing design application: 200 TRY for one design and 80 TRY for each additional design 

The official fees in the Turkish jurisdiction are revised and announced in the beginning of every year and come into force as from January 01 of each year.

The schedule of fees announced for 2021 can be found on this link. TURKPATENT accepts all the applications and requests, and the payments thereof via its state-of-the art EPATS system.

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Data transfer feature between TURKPATENT and EPO for European patent validations put into use

Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT) has announced that a web service was created between European Patent Office (EPO) and TURKPATENT for the entries of the validation of the European patents and submission of the set of the claims for provisional protections in Turkey.

With the databases being integrated, when the users enter the grant number (B1) for validating the European patents in Turkey or the publication number (A1) for submitting the set of claims for European patent applications into the the EPATS, which is the electronic filing system of TURKPATENT, the following data will be automatically fetched from the database of the European patent register:

• European Patent Application Data
• European Patent Application Number
• European Patent Application Publication Date
• European Patent Grant Date
• International Patent Classes (IPC)
• Priority Claim Rights Data
• Title and Address of Applicants and Holders
• Title and Address of the inventors

This new facility will substantially accelerate the filing procedure and provide the consistency of the data between both Offices.

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Turkey further extended IP deadlines

Turkey has further extended IP deadlines keeping the time limits suspended as from 13 March 2020 due to noval coronovirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

The further extension has become possible by the recent presidential decision dated 29 April 2020 (Decision No: 2480). With the decision, all the deadlines, which were previously suspended starting from 13 March 2020 to 30 April 2020 by the omnibus bill issued on 26 March 2020, were further extended till 15 June 2020 and will resume on 16 June 2020.

As the calculation of the deadlines appears complex to some extent, Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TURKPATENT) has indicated each situation for calculating the upcoming deadlines as follows:

• If the time limit set by the Office expired on 12 March 2020 or before, the time limit will not change, namely there will be no extension of time.
• If the time limit set by the Office expired between 13 March 2020 and 27 March 2020 (inclusive these dates), the deadline to act will be 30 June 2020.
• If the time limit set by the Office expired/will expire between 28 March 2020 and 15 June 2020 (inclusive these dates), the deadline to act will be the date which is calculated by adding the remaining time as of 13 Mart 2020 to 16 June 2020.
• If the time limit set by the Office started before 13 March 2020 and ended/will end on 16 June 2020 or later, the deadline to act will be the date which is calculated by adding 95 days to the expiry date of the time limit.
• If the time limit set by the Office started between 13 March 2020 and 15 June 2020 (inclusive these dates), the time limit set by the Office will start on 16 June 2020.

For calculating the deadlines, the spreadsheet calculator provided here can be used.

TURKPATENT remains fully operative and accept all the applications and requests by its electronic filing system (EPATS).

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