Article 8 of the Regulation on Commercial Advertisement and Unfair Commercial Practices ("Regulation") permits comparative advertisements under specific conditions. Subparagraph (a) requires that such advertisements should "not be misleading or deceptive," while subparagraph (f) mandates that "claims based on objective, measurable, and numerical data must be substantiated by scientific tests, reports, or documents." Additionally, Article 9, titled "Burden of Proof," specifies…
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In the 1st paragraph of Article 6 of the Industrial Property Law no. 6769, which regulates the relative refusal grounds in trademark registration, the existence of a likelihood of confusion requires the condition of “identicalness or similarity” of the trademarks along with the similarity of the goods and/or services. During the evaluation of the similarity between the trademarks, the focus is commonly gathered on visual, aural and semantic similarity. The existence of any…
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With the on-site inspections and investigations conducted by the Competition Board (“Board”) in recent years, against innovation-oriented technology companies, pharmaceutical companies, and companies operating in the information technology sector due to competition violations in labor markets, a need has arisen to provide clarity regarding the application of the Law on the Protection of Competition (“Law”) to labor markets and how anti-competitive agreements that restrict…
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In the second quarter of 2024, the Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency (the “Agency”) published an announcement on its website, opening the Draft Regulation on the Promotional Activities of Human Medicinal Products and Food for Special Medical Purposes (the “Draft”) for external comments. Significant amendments proposed in the initial version can be reviewed by clicking here.
Updates have been made to the Draft based on the opinions of sector stakeholders. The…
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The Court of Cassation has approved the First Instance Court’s decision in a case involving several INFINITY marks, shedding light on the principle of global appreciation of trademarks in the similarity examination.
Background
On 8 January 2018 the applicant filed an application to register the trademark depicted below for “flying services by means of paragliding” in Class 41 before the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (PTO):
After the application was published in…
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Legislation
Treaties
Is your country party to any bilateral or multilateral treaties for the reciprocal recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments? What is the country’s approach to entering into these treaties, and what, if any, amendments or reservations has your country made to such treaties?
Except for multilateral treaties on family law, Türkiye is not a signatory to multilateral treaties for the reciprocal recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. However…
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Article 4 of the Law No. 6769 on Industrial Property indicates that sounds can be registered as trade marks if they are capable of being distinguishable for the goods or services of one undertaking from that of another:
“Trademarks may consist of any signs like […], sounds and the shape of goods or their packaging, provided that such signs are capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings and being represented on the…
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Before filing lawsuits to assert patent rights against generics or biosimilars, the patent holder essentially operates in the dark. This is because, particularly in cases where the summary of product characteristics (“SmPC”) of the biosimilar/generic drug has not yet been published, or when it is not clear from the limited information in the SmPC whether the patent has been infringed, the relevant sections of the biosimilar/generic product's dossier must be examined to assess…
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It is observed that the supervisory power of the Re-examination and Evaluation Board (“Higher Board”), which is in charge of examining and finalizing appeals against the decisions taken by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (the “Office”) regarding the registration of IP rights, is in the form of a review of expediency. This issue is regulated in paragraph 4 of Article 6 of the Regulation on the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office Board of the Re-examination and…
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With the rapid expansion of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and its integration into all areas of life, it has become essential to establish a legal framework that regulates the safe and ethical development, distribution and use of AI systems, considering the complexity and unique characteristics of this technology.
In addition to promoting the safe, transparent, and human rights-respecting development of AI technologies, and aiming to protect the safety, rights, and…
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The Regulation on the Cultivation and Control of Cannabis for the Production of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients ("Regulation") prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (“Ministry”) was published and came into force upon being published in the Official Gazette numbered 32661 dated 13 September, 2024. The Regulation includes provisions on the control, harvesting, evaluation, processing, disposal, display, export and/or purchase/sale of cannabis cultivation for the…
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Patents
Requirements to Obtain a Patent
1. Provide a brief definition of a patent, the key legal requirements to obtain it and the law that applies.
Conditions for a Patent
A patent is an industrial property right that gives the patent owner the right to prevent third parties from certain activities such as producing, using, selling, or importing the product or process that is the subject of the invention for a 20-year period.
The applicant must prove the following to obtain…
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