Insights
Employee Incentives in Turkey
1. What kinds of incentive plan are most commonly offered and to whom? The most prevalent type of monetary incentive plan in Turkey is bonus paid monthly or annually. For most of the employees this bonus may be calculated as sales commission calculated upon good or services sold to customer or the employees may receive project bonuses from the work performed with their team. The highest ranked employees may also benefit from profit sharing. Some of the companies also… »
Is a Public Interest Compulsory Licence on the Way?
Compulsory licensing (CL) has been one of the most important concepts in the new Turkish IP Law which entered into force in 2017. Although the concept is not new, the new Article 129, among others, provides the following possible conditions for granting a CL: (i) failure to work or insufficient working that does not meet the national market needs before the expiration of a period of four years from the date of filing of the patent application or three years from the date of… »
One Last Step Before Litigating Your Commercial Receivables: Mandatory Mediation
Introduction In order to improve time and cost efficiency, in recent years the Turkish legislature has created legal initiatives to encourage private parties to settle through compromise rather than litigation. In this regard, mandatory mediation for commercial receivables has been recently introduced via the Law on Legal Procedures to Initiate Proceedings for Monetary Receivables arising out of Subscription Agreements (Law 7155) with new articles being added to the… »
Certificate of Competence for Product Promotion Representatives
Dicle Doğan and Fatma Sevde Tan, Gun + Partners Article 10 of the Regulation on Promotional Activities of Medicinal Products for Human Use states that the Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency shall issue a certificate of competence to the following individuals: Graduates of universities that educate product promotion representatives, upon submission of their diploma to the agency. Graduates from a school of higher education who have succeeded in a specified… »
Mandatory Mediation for Commercial Receivables
Mediation has become a must in commercial receivables actions and to this end some provisions of Turkish Commercial Code (“TCC”) and Code of Mediation in Civil Disputes have been amended within the scope of Code of Commencement of Execution Proceedings in Monetary Receivables Arising from Subscription Agreements (the “Code”) which became effective by being published in Official Gazette dated 19 December 2018 and numbered 30630. In this regard; By incorporating Article… »
Composition with Creditors
It is no secret that the Turkish economy has been suffering from a few problems. As is usually the case for all economies under distress, various Turkish businesses have been in dire straits. The depreciation in Turkish lira and inflation, together with other factors, put a lot of pressure on the Turkish economy. Various companies in Turkey started to have problems in making their payments in due time. A number of these companies applied for the procedure of composition with… »
Legitimate Interest in Turkish DPL Compared with GDPR and Directive
Legitimate interest has been the subject of various interesting discussions in the European data protection practice. As the Turkish Data Protection Law is modeled on Directive 95/46/EC and also includes some concepts from the GDPR, legitimate interest became an important topic also in the Turkish data protection practice. Although the wording of legitimate interest as a lawful basis under the DPL is similar to the directive and the GDPR, there are important differences. The… »
New Tools for TMs
Turkey’s Industrial Property Code No. 6769 (IPC) came into force on 10th January 2017 and brought in a number of new rules, with the major amendments relating to: letters of consent; non-use defence in opposition and litigation proceedings; and time limits for cancellation actions. Importantly, the IPC introduces the principle of coexistence into Turkish trade mark law. Accordingly, letters of consent from the senior trade mark owner or trade mark application owner have… »
Online Notification of Sanctions Issued to Medical Device Companies
Online notification of sanctions issued to medical device companies Dicle Doğan and Fatma Sevde Tan, Gun + Partners The Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency has announced that sanctions for breaches of the provisions governing the online notification of scientific and educational meetings (Turkish language) shall be imposed automatically via the online system only. Pursuant to Article 21 of the Regulation on the Sale, Advertisement and Promotion of Medical Devices and… »
What are the Rules Around the Non-Use Defence in Oppositions?
The new IP Code came into force on January 10 2017 in Turkey. One of the major changes in the new IP Code is a non-use defence in opposition proceedings. According to the IP Code, if the ground trade mark was registered more than five years from the application date (or priority date) of the opposed trade mark application, upon request by the owner of the trade mark application, the Office is obliged to ask the opponent to prove effective use of the ground trade mark(s) on… »
Leading Home Appliances Manufacturer Granted Preliminary Injunction Against Competitor
Co-published Last year, Turkey’s leading home appliance manufacturer filed two patent infringement actions, claiming the determination, prohibition and prevention of a patent infringement and seeking a preliminary injunction against an international company in the same sector for its coffee machine products. The infringement actions were based on two patents protecting different features and methods of a Turkish coffee machine – the first electronic coffee machine dedicated… »
New Company Set to Boost IP Commercialisation
The Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (the Office) founded a company on April 2 2018 based in Ankara, called Türk Sınai Mülkiyet Değerleme Mühendislik ve Danışmanlık Hizmetleri Anonim Şirketi (TÜRKSMD). The company’s sole owner is currently the Office. TÜRKSMD will be able to pursue commercial purposes since it is founded as a corporation and is open to all nationalities, persons and institutions. The primary aim of TÜRKSMD is to value intellectual property rights belonging… »