Processing of Personal Data in COVID-19 Outbreak
The world is struggling with an unprecedented crisis seen in recent human history. Governments have taken serious measures to combat the outbreak and Covid-19 was declared to be a "pandemic" by the World Health Organization. Within the scope of the measures taken, data controllers, public authorities or private companies, are in need of processing personal data with different methods to protect health and limit the spread of the infection through contact tracing and requiring… »
What Does Labour Law Say About COVID-19?
Introduction On 11 March 2020 the Ministry of Health announced that the first case of coronavirus (COVID-19) had been diagnosed in Turkey. At the time of writing, 46 additional cases have been confirmed and the total number has reached up to 47. This pandemic will inevitably affect labour law; as part of employers' duty to protect employees, they must take occupational health and safety measures and protect employees' health and physical and mental integrity. Employers'… »
Impact of Coronavirus on Contracts and Force Majeure
The Course of Coronavirus Outbreak and Its Economic Impacts Coronavirus, first seen in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and causing Covid-19 (coronavirus disease), has spread to all continents except Antarctica and 127 countries in as little as three months, and as of the date of this article, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide has exceeded 134.000 while the number of deaths has exceeded 4.900. On March 12, 2020, World Health Organization declared coronavirus… »
Insights as to Turkish Copyright Law
What can content creators do to protect themselves? Copyright protection is mainly regulated under Turkish Intellectual and Artistic Works Law No. 5846 (referred to as Law No. 5846 hereafter). As to the Turkish Copyright Law, protection shall start with the creation and publication of the work to the public which meets the conditions under the Law No. 5846. Therefore neither registration of the copyright owned work with any competent authority nor confirmation of the same is… »
Scope of Protection of Weak Marks in Turkey
In a decision published on 18 December 2019, the Turkish Court of Cassation (COC) ruled that trade marks inspired by descriptive words, which are not allowed to be monopolized, are weak trade marks and cannot be protected like trade marks with a high distinctiveness. Even small differences can make these trade marks distinctive, and owners of weak marks cannot oppose the registration of the same signs with different elements. Mutlu Yıldırım Köse explains Plaintiff's… »
Key Developments and Predictions for Patent Law in Turkey – 2020
It has been three years since the Industrial Property Law, which combined different Decree Laws on specific IP rights, came into force. The fourth book of the Law introduces relatively new provisions regarding the patent system in Turkey that bring the national law into line with the European Patent Convention (EPC). Although it is too early for the implications of the new law to have come to light, working requirements and compulsory licensing remain the most questioned… »