Land of Hot Air Balloons – Türkiye
Turkey is a republic spanning two continents, Asia and Europe. It is located in the middle of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. It is immersed in the "crossroads of Eastern and Western civilizations". It has been a bridge connecting East and West since ancient times. It is a representative power in the Middle East. Turkey is not only a well-known Islamic country that achieved modernization through the separation of church and state, but also a member of NATO and a candidate country of the European Union. It is also a founding member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and a member of the G20. Turkey has a strong industrial foundation. For more than ten years, it has a stable political system, a sound and standardized legal system, a good social and economic foundation, an expanding domestic market, and a rapid increase in economic aggregate. It is now the 17th largest economy in the world and is also the An important distribution center for services, personnel, capital, and technology, the investment environment is improving day by day, and it is more and more favored by overseas investors. The technical level of Turkey's textile and clothing industry ranks in the leading position in the world, and it is the eighth largest textile and clothing exporter in the world. In addition, the automobile industry is gradually replacing the textile industry as Turkey's new leading industry, and it is currently the 15th largest automobile manufacturing country in the world. Turkey is the seventh largest agricultural production area and the ninth largest producer of agricultural products in the world, one of the world's major producers and exporters of building materials, and the fifth largest shipbuilding country in the world.
China and Turkey are located at the east and west ends of the Asian continent, and are the starting and ending points of the ancient Asian Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road. According to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce of China, my country has become Turkey's second largest trading partner and the largest source of imports in the world. The newly signed large-scale contracted projects between China and Turkey include the Erbistan 1X500MW coal-fired power station project in Turkey undertaken by China Hydropower Construction Group International Engineering Co., Ltd.; the Turk Telecom project undertaken by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.; Tuz Lake Underground Natural Gas Storage Expansion Project, etc. Chinese companies' investment and cooperation in Turkey are mainly concentrated in telecommunications, finance, transportation, energy, mining, manufacturing, agriculture and other fields, among which the competition in the energy field is relatively fierce.
In terms of intellectual property rights, Turkey became a member of the European Patent Convention in 2000. On January 10, 2017, the new Turkish industrial property law "Industrial Property Law No. 6769" came into effect, covering trademarks, patents, utility models, designs, geographical indications, traditional product names, registration, post-registration transactions, legal and criminal sanctions in a piece of legislation. In recent years, with the continuous deepening of the "going out" strategy, the demand for intellectual property rights of Chinese enterprises in Turkey has continued to increase. Today we will start with the patent system to understand the general situation of intellectual property rights in Turkey.
An overview of patents in Türkiye
1. Types of Protection for Turkish Patents
There are three types of patents in Turkey: invention, utility model and design.
2. Ways for Chinese applicants to apply for patents in Türkiye:
Paris Convention, PCT International Application Entry into Türkiye, Direct Application
3. Competent unit
The Turkish Patent and Trademark Office, Turkpatent, was established on June 24, 1994. It is a subsidiary of the Ministry of Industrial Technology (Sanayi ve Teknoloji Bakanlığı'nın), aiming to promote the development of technology in Turkey, protect industrial property rights, and provide the public with global industrial property rights information. The agency is responsible for registering patents, utility models, designs, trademarks, geographical indications, traditional product names and layouts of integrated circuits, and taking actions to protect these rights, in accordance with the provisions of the relevant laws.
4. Submit your application
1) Deadline requirements:
- via Paris Convention : within 12 months from the earliest priority date
- Entry of PCT international application into Turkey: within 30 months from the earliest priority date
2) Language requirements: The official language of Turkish patent applications is Turkish. It is permitted to file applications in the official language of the country with a reciprocal agreement followed by a Turkish translation.
3) Application method: The application can be submitted through the online Turkish patent document online system (Türk Patent Çevrimiçi Evrak Sistemi) provided by the Turkpatent website, or it can be submitted in paper form.
5. Formal examination
After the filing date has been determined and the applicant has not withdrawn the application, Turkpatent will examine the application for compliance with the formal requirements prescribed by law. In addition, it should be noted that when a Chinese applicant submits a patent application through the via Paris Convention or the direct application route, he needs to go through the confidentiality review procedures with the Chinese Patent Office in advance.
6. Search report
Applicants may file a search request at the same time as filing a patent application, or within 12 months from the filing date. If Turkpatent determines that the application meets the requirements of formality examination, or that the defects in the application have been corrected, a search report will be issued, sent to the applicant and published in the Patent Gazette. If the patent application has been published at this time, the search report will be published separately; if the patent application has not been published, the search report will be published together with the patent application.
7. Disclosure procedure
After 18 months from the filing date or from the earliest priority date, Turkpatent will publish the patent application in the Gazette. From the date of publication, the applicant will receive provisional patent protection and third parties can submit comments on the patentability of the invention.
8. Substantive examination procedure
The applicant shall file a request for substantive examination and pay relevant fees within 3 months from the date of Turkpatent issuing the search report. Turkpatent will start the substantive examination procedure and issue an examination report, requiring the applicant to submit a defense or revise the application documents within 3 months. This kind of notification-response or modification process can be repeated, but no more than 3 times.
9. Authorization procedure
If the patent application passes the substantive examination, Turkpatent will notify the applicant and publish the grant decision in the Official Gazette. The applicant needs to pay the granting official fee within the specified period, and will then receive the patent right certificate.
10. Post-grant opposition procedure
Any third party may file an opposition request within 6 months from the date Turkpatent issues a patent grant decision. Turkpatent will notify the patentee of the opposition received and require the patentee to reply or make changes to the patent within a specified period.
Features of Turkish patents
1. The search and examination procedures of Turkish patents are separated, which facilitates the applicant to withdraw the application in time after receiving an unfavorable search report, keeps the technical plan confidential and stops the loss in time.
2. The Turkish Industrial Property Law stipulates the obligation to implement patented inventions, and stipulates that patented inventions that are not implemented can be requested to provide compulsory implementation rights. After obtaining the patent granted, attention should be paid to submit the implementation instructions of the patent right in a timely manner.
3. Although Turkey has promulgated laws related to patent reexamination, it has not actually implemented administrative reexamination and invalidation, but directly sought judicial relief. The courts of first instance in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir have set up specialized intellectual property criminal and civil courts to hear criminal and civil cases involving intellectual property rights, while intellectual property cases in other cities are handled by local civil/criminal courts Responsible for hearing.
Friendliness to Chinese applicants:
★★★★
Gold content of patent rights:
★★★
The degree of perfection of the rights protection mechanism:
★★★
