Insights Intellectual Property

The Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (‘office’) applies the Nice Classification for the classification of goods and services in the registration process of national and international trademarks. Undertakings try to avoid possible conflicts by, for example, restricting their trademarks to the area in which they operate and/or differentiating the goods and services within the scope of their trademark from those covered by earlier similar trademarks. In other words, undertakings aim to circumvent the trademark rights and fields of activity of others by ‘limiting’ the scope of their trademarks, so that they can prevent a likelihood of confusion and co-exist in the market, even if the signs are similar.

In a case, the Turkish Civil IP Court decided for the invalidation of a trademark registration identical to the plaintiff’s mark and trade name. The decision noted that: The plaintiff held a registration for the same class in the EU (but not in Turkey) before the trademark at issue; andThe plaintiff’s mark had a high distinctiveness and the defendant could not have created the mark on its own, coincidentally.In light of these points, the local court concluded that the defendant registered the mark intentionally to take unfair advantage of the well-known status of the plaintiff’s mark and was therefore in bad faith. Indeed, the defendant holds other trademarks that are well known in Turkey or have the potential to be well known in Turkey, which is also proof of the defendant’s bad faith.

In a recent decision, the Re-examination and Evaluation Board (‘the board’) of the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has found that the trademarks DEPLHI and DELPHI were similar and covered similar goods and services, and that the application for DEPLHI had been filed in bad faith.

Telif hakları 5846 sayılı Fikir ve Sanat Eserleri Kanunu (“FSEK”) ile koruma altına alınmaktadır ancak FSEK’te açık bir tanımı bulunmamaktadır. Telif Hakları Genel Müdürlüğü tarafından yapılan telif hakkı tanımı “Kişinin her türlü fikri emeği ile meydana getirdiği ürünler üzerinde hukuken sağlanan haklardır.” şeklindedir. Yukarıda yer alan tanımdan da anlaşılacağı üzere, telif hakkı özgün bir şekilde ortaya çıkan ve sahibinin özelliklerini yansıtan eserler için düzenlenen bir hukuki haktır. Bu kapsamda, telif hakkının konusu eser olarak kabul edilmektedir. Dolayısıyla, telif hakkının söz konusu olabilmesi için öncelikle bir eser olması gerekmektedir.

Copyrights are protected by the Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works with numbered 5846 (“IPL”), but there is no clear definition related to the copyrights in the IPL. The definition of copyright made by the General Directorate of Copyrights is “the legal rights on the products created by the individual with all kinds of intellectual effort.”

In one year’s time, trade mark revocation proceedings will be possible before the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TPTO). Güldeniz Doğan Alkan and Cansu Evren discuss the changes. Article 26 of the IP Code After years of proceeding with a Decree Law, the Intellectual Property Code no. 6769 entered into force in Turkey on 10 January 2017. Article 26 of the IP Code regulates the revocation of a trade mark registration. It foresees that the trade mark shall be revoked in the following conditions:

The determination of evidence, one of the most important temporary legal protection measures regulated in Turkish law, is an institution that ensures the protection of evidence, which will assist in proving the matter in question. Considering that the adversarial trial process is adopted in Turkish civil procedure law, the significance of the rights holder being able to have the evidence that will help them prove themselves effectively determined is clear. However, in disputes relating to pharmaceutical patents, the determination of evidence institution is also a prerequisite in order to benefit from a preliminary injunction, which is another interim measure institution.

It will be recalled that, in the subject applications, the applicant Dr. Thaler has designated AI (DABUS)as inventor and claimed that he derived the “right to the patent by virtue of being its creator and owner”. The applicant asserted that the “inventions had been created autonomously” as DABUS, the so-called, “the creativity machine” “produces new ideas and mimics the human brain’s major cognitive circuit: the thalamocortical loop.”

IP lawyers and advisors to video game firms must be creative. This is because: the financial value of the video game industry is high and has been increasing dramatically, especially during the covid-19 pandemic;it is important to address the global reach of the video game industry, but to treat it from a local law perspective;numerous actors are involved in the video game industry; andvideo games are complex works of authorship, comprising diverse IP rights.

In our opinion, the General Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court shall acknowledge the will of the Parliament to include the decisions of the Enlarged Board of Appeal. Therefore, EPC 1973 shall be implemented together with reference decisions and second medical use patents should be protected. Since there are no exclusions to the protection of second medical use patents in the IP Code, they should be protected in Turkey as long as they are novel and include inventive step.

Geographically positioned between Europe and Asia, Turkey is a strategically placed country, with a population of 82 million and a larger youth population than any EU member state. Taking its place on the list of G20 countries, Turkey aims to position itself in the global value chain and strengthen its export platform by focusing on high-tech patents, including electronic machinery and equipment, automotive spare parts, railway and maritime transport, and energy generation and efficiency projects. In addition, as a natural transport hub, Turkey is a transitional trade platform between Europe and Asia, which significantly increases the relevance of appropriate IP rights protection.

The grounds for the invalidation of a patent within the scope of Turkish Industrial Property Law No. 6769 are listed as per the numerus clausus principle. The concept of plausibility – which has been the subject of numerous evaluations, especially by the EPO, and frequently debated in academic circles in recent years – has not yet found a place within the scope of any legal regulation in Turkey. Moreover, there is no consensus on the Turkish word that meets this concept as a legal term.

The Internet has gone beyond of its fundamental functions of providing access to information and distributing the same and become a tool for interconnecting the entire world and an irreplaceable method of meeting the most basic human needs due to the transformation it has been going through the recent years. Accordingly, websites have turned into platforms with which we make contacts multiple times every day in order to carry out our daily activities. In Turkey, being one of the countries with greatest percentage of internet penetration, there is no set of rules specifically applicable to websites, which leaves the question of how exactly websites are protected under Turkish law unanswered.

According to the Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works with No. 5846 (“IPL”) one of the protected types of works is a cinematographic works. There are many kinds such as motion picture, TV series, commercial film, documentary film within the scope of works that have the nature of cinematographic works. While these works are being created, different contracts are being made with many people who contribute to these works in order to work in an organized manner. One of these contracts is the contracts concluded with the actors involved in the cinematographic works.

Determination of evidence, which is one of the most important temporary legal protection measures regulated in our law, is an institution that ensures the protection of evidence that will assist the proving of the matter. Considering that the adversarial trial process is adopted in our civil procedure law, the significance of the right holder being able to have the evidence which will help them prove their rightness effectively determined, is clear. However, as will be explained below, in disputes regarding pharmaceutical patents, the determination of evidence institution is also a prerequisite for benefiting from the preliminary injunction, which is another interim measure institution.