Ata Patent Turkish patent lawyers provide a broad range of design patent services including; design patent application, renewal, protection such as intellectual property litigation, appeal, opposition, cancellation, and answer design patent FAQs in Turkey and answers below.
We understand the mechanics of product design, manufacturing, and distribution, counseling clients in both consumer and commercial markets. Please see Design Patent FAQs & Answers in Turkey below.
Turkish Design Patent Law
Industrial design registrations are now more important than ever given that industrial design registration rights are required to remove infringements on social media, online retail sites, domains, and scam sites.
We understand how new technologies affect brand strategies, including social media, contextual advertising, and affiliate network advertising. Design Patent FAQs in Turkey are answered below.
What is an Industrial Design?
Industrial designs are any product or pieces of such products which accompany us in our daily lives and facilitate our lives; the patterns, and ornaments that make our lives colorful and address our senses.
The glass out of which we drink water, the introductory posters of a movie, the patterns on our clothes, calculator, keyboard, chair, jacket, car, traffic plates, watch, thermometer, toys, the page-setting of the datebook, glasses, bags, etc are the examples to this.
So, the design can best be expressed as the entirety of the various features such as lines, color, texture, shape, sound, elasticity, material, or other characteristics perceived by the human senses of the appearance of the whole or part of a product or its ornamentation.
What is a Product?
In order to register the designs, they should also first fit the definition of “product“. The “product” in law has an extensive meaning which includes any industrial or handicraft item, parts of a complex system, sets, compositions of items, packaging, get-ups, graphic symbols, and typographic typefaces, excluding the computer programs and semi-conductor products.
What is the Scope of the Rights for Designs?
The holder shall have exclusive rights through the protection of industrial design by registration. The third parties cannot produce, market, sell, import, or enter into a contract, use the same for commercial purposes or withhold the registered designs without the permission of the holder of the design rights.
What is the Novelty in Designs?
If the design has not been made available to the public in the world prior to the application date or the priority date, such a design shall be deemed to be “new”. If the designs differ only in immaterial details, they shall be considered identical. To make available to the public shall cover all actions of sale, use, publication, publicity, exhibiting, or such similar activities.
If a design for which protection is claimed has been made available to the public during the twelve-month period preceding the date of the filing of the application by the designer or his successor in title or by a third person having their approval, such disclosure shall not affect the novelty.
What is an Individual Character?
A design shall be understood to have an individual character if the overall impression it creates on the informed user is significantly different from the overall impression created on the same user by any design.
What is Priority Right?
It shortly means priority rights. Depending on the previously made proper applications for the design registrations abroad or on the exhibitions for this specific purpose, the Applicants will hold priority rights to make an application in Turkey for the same design within six months from the date of first filing.
Which Designs Excluded from Protection?
- The designs are not new and do not have an individual character.
- The designs result from a technical function that does not leave to the designer any freedom in the design characteristics and elements
- The designs contrary to public order and accepted principles of morality
- The designs must necessarily be produced in their exact form and dimensions in order to enable the product in which the design is incorporated or to which it is applied to be mechanically assembled or connected with other products
What is Designs Competitiveness?
The aesthetic characteristics of any product are of great importance in making decisions for purchasing products that are similar to each other in terms of quality and that present the same benefits and promises to the customer. Therefore, consumers prefer to purchase the most attractive products among those with similar quality.
The manufacturer firms develop design models for their respective customers. Such an effort creates a second competition environment beyond quality. The factors such as the form, color, and volume of the product have attained importance and the newly established competition is underway.
In addition, designs provide functionality, easy utilization, and ergonomics, as well as aesthetics, and contributions they make to our lives.
How does Turkish Design Registration System Work?
Turkish Patent & Trademark Office does not examine the applications of the industrial design in view of “novelty” and “individual character“
The registration process for industrial designs in our country is formed up of four main processes which can be summarized as formal examination, registration into the industrial design records and publication, opposition, and certification.
Formal examination: It is the initial examination of the application carried out in accordance with the provisions in 6769 numbered Industrial Property Law together with the examination to be executed under the terms stipulated in the Regulation.
The initial examination is the examination of the applications in accordance with the definitions of the products and designs under this particular clause and the rejection of the applications which do not comply with such definitions.
Design Patent FAQ & Answers in Turkey
The formal examination is the examination to verify whether the required documents are submitted in the course of application or not and if submitted whether they comply with the clearly made statements in the articles of the pertinent Regulation or not.
Any application for design registration is not examined according to the criteria such as “novelty” and “individual character”. Therefore, at the international level, except for several countries, the registration of an industrial design is referred to as a system with no examination (in terms of “novelty” and “individual character”) based on the opposition as generally accepted.
According to the laws currently in force, the criteria of “novelty” and “individual character stipulated as protection conditions should be recognized worldwide, and since the materials used anonymously and in a recognizable manner comprise substantially subjectivity and difficulties in the determination of criteria to make such a distinction.
It is considered that the actual case will be that the initial examination will focus on the persons to be examined which is to lead to confusion and therefore the system without opposition is adopted for the registration of the industrial designs.
The applications that are complete as a consequence of the above examination, shall be registered in the design records and published in the Official Industrial Design Bulletin.
How to File an Opposition Against a Design Application?
Referring to a published design for a period of 6 months from the date of publication, the natural or legal and real persons, and related professional organizations may file an opposition in the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office against the applications.
With respect to any design already published, the persons and the professional organizations may file an opposition against the issuance of a registration certificate within six months from the date of publication, depending on the fact that the design is not new and does not have an individual character or the design presents on holding the rights for such a design.
The opposition made is examined by the Re-Examination and Evaluation Committee under the light of the documents submitted to verify the right holder or the novelty and individual character terms.
In case no opposition is made within the legally stipulated period of 6 months or as a result of the refusal of the oppositions, the certificate of design registration is to be forwarded to the applicant. In case the opposition period of 6 months expires, the matter can be referred to the courts for the cancellation or invalidity of the design registration.
What is the difference between the designer and the person claiming registration right?
Any natural or legal persons may claim design rights. The holder of design rights is who manufactures, markets, sells, contracts, and uses the design commercially. The designer is the person who actually made the design.
How long are Industrial Designs Protected?
The term of protection of the registered designs is 5 years from the date of application. The term of protection may be extended up to 25 years in every 5-years renewal period.
What is Multiple Application? What are the Provisions for Multiple Applications?
The multiple application is the claim for protection for more than one design in a single application. In order to make multiple applications, the products should;
- belong to the same sub-class, or
- belong to the same set, or
- pieces of unified product or
- be compounded with aggregate perceived multiple objects and presentations.
Is Registration of Industrial Design in Turkey Valid in Other Countries?
Registration of any industrial design provides national protection to the holders. In other words, the protection through registration is valid only within the boundaries of the country of registration.
Therefore, if it is claimed to protect the design in more than one country, it is the best way to file an application to the offices in each of the countries where the protection is to be claimed, separately.
However, since it has been observed recently that any separate application to each of the offices in such countries has led to several problems in terms of different application processes and use of different languages, there established systems that provide protection in more than one country through a single application to be made.
For this specific purpose, The Hague Agreement Concerning International Deposit of Industrial Designs was put into effect in our country on January 01, 2005.
What are the Legal Actions Against Infringement of Design?
Imprisonment or fines shall be applied to those who make false statements in the fake capacity of the design right holder or those although not granted any authorization, who remove the signs on the goods or packages which evidence the design protection, or those who pretend that they are the applicant or the holder of any design right.
In addition to the imprisonment and fines, in the case of infringement of the design rights, the place of businesses of those are closed for not less than one year and they are prohibited from dealing with commercial activities within the stipulated period.
We answered Design Patent FAQs in Turkey above, please contact us, if you have any more questions.
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