Symposium on Changes in The Legislation and The Prosecution of Trademark and Patent in The Frame of The New Industrial Property Law numbered 6769 (“New Law”)
“On the 2nd of June, Thursday, The Symposium on Changes in The Legislation and The Prosecution of Trademark and Patent in The Frame of The New Industrial Property Law numbered 6769 (“New Law”) has been organized in cooperation with the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office, Association of Trademark and Patent Specialists and AIPPI Turkey, in Ankara.
The most outstanding point of the Symposium was definitely the enforcement of the “Letter of Consent” in the Trademark prosecution system, which is newly introduced by the New Law. The Market conditions, demands on co-existence of the firms in good faith, removing the obstacles towards the trademarks which are aimed to be used and challenges which the holdings or company groups face in umbrella brandings are tried to be eliminated with this instrument. However, in the new system, Letter of Consent is not available to submit in every step of your application and cannot be issued under any circumstances. Likewise, the new legislation does not allow the parties to withdraw it once it’s submitted. Furthermore, according to the previous legislation, “Refutation of Non-Use” or opposition against a trademark based on “non-use” was not in the subject. In compliance with the New Law, in case of opposition based on similarity grounds, applicants can ask for “Using Proof” from the former holder.
On the other hand, increasing number of patent applications and the new patent prosecution system have been assessed by the attendees and discussants. Approximately 6,500 Patent and 2,500 Utility Model applications have been filed last year, hence, it’s expected to reach around 10,000 inventions to be filed in the year 2017. In this regard, the New Law shall be settling the myth of patent-pending issues, problems arising from priority dates and the capability of the system for meeting the needs of the market, as well as keeping up with the examinations of numerous applications, they emphasized. As “patent pending issues” instance, with the regulations in the New Law, it is doable to convert the Utility Model to Patent and vice versa, for only one time. Likewise to the processual workload, the eligibility and quality of the patent have been treated by the lecturers, since it is the heading discussion topic in the most IP related occasions in all over the world as well.”