Insights
AI Regulations In Türkiye: Developments And Implications
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the rapidly advancing technologies that is increasingly being used in practice. AI, which has found widespread application in both the public and private sectors, has become a major agenda item in Turkiye as well. The development and widespread adoption of these applications offer opportunities for increased efficiency in various sectors. However, unlike the regulations established in the European Union, Turkiye currently does not have… »
Pharmaceuticals, Medical Devices, Digitalization: What Awaits the Healthcare Sectors in the 12th Development Plan and the 2025 Presidential Annual Program?
The 12th Development Plan 2024–2028 (“Development Plan”) and the 2025 Presidential Annual Program (“Program”) set the development goals and strategic policies for various sectors in Türkiye. In line with the Development Plan and Program, the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors are among those that emphasize key goals to increase Türkiye’s sustainability in the healthcare field, enhance domestic production capacity, and reduce dependency on imports. Overall, the aim is… »
Developments About Corporate Sustainability in Türkiye
The principle of sustainability initially emerged as a corporate social responsibility notion under the management activities of companies and then, brought along the necessity for companies to act ethically and responsibly towards their stakeholders. The elements of environmental, social and economic sustainability are collectively at the core of corporate social responsibility and this concept is based on the responsibility of companies towards society. It is observed that… »
International Update
The World Health Organization (WHO) gives pharmaceutical substances international non-proprietary names (INNs) so that each substance can be identified by a distinct name. However, pharmaceutical trade marks cannot be composed entirely of INNs. The rulings of the Court of Cassation (the CoC) indicate that while pharmaceutical trade marks can be derived from INNs, they cannot consist solely of these names. For instance, an action was filed claiming that the defendant’s trade… »
Time Extension Granted: August 7, 2024 - Allocation of Domain Names in Structure of “a.tr”
In addition to domain names such as "com.tr" and "org.tr", which are already being allocated in Türkiye, allocation of domain names in the structure of "a.tr" has also become possible as of September 14, 2023. Domain names in the structure of “a.tr” do not include extensions for generic top-level domains (gTLD) such as ".com", ".net", ".org", etc. but have a direct country code extension of ".tr". The initial allocation of these domain names is carried out by the Information… »
Data Controllers and Processors’ Turn to Take Actions Now!
The Regulation on Procedures and Principles Regarding the Cross-border Transfer of Personal Data (the “Regulation”) is published in the Official Gazette on 10 July 2024. Additionally, the Personal Data Protection Board (the “Board”) announced the standard contract texts, binding corporate rules application forms and supplementary guidelines about essential issues required to be covered by binding corporate rules. Except for cross-border transfers that are irregular, occur on… »
Crypto Asset Regulations Came Into Force
The need for legal regulation regarding crypto assets has been discussed for a considerable time. With the amendments made by Law no. 7518 (the “Law”) introduced to the Law on Capital Markets no. 6362, published in the Official Gazette numbered 32590 dated July 2, 2024, a comprehensive legal basis for crypto assets has been established within the Turkish legal framework for the first time. The Law has authorized the Capital Markets Board (the “Board”) for drafting secondary… »
Dealing With Social Media Influencers - Türkiye
Influencer marketing through social media influencers has achieved giant growth in the advertising sector. Brands, including global and local ones, co-operate with social media influencers to advertise their brands, goods and services because social media influencers are very capable of directing the consumers’ buying habits into certain brands via the presentations, recommendations and compliments they make. Similarly, based on global research statistics, Türkiye ranks… »
Is It Really Number One Of Türkiye?
Article 8 of the Regulation on Commercial Advertisement and Unfair Commercial Practices ("Regulation") permits comparative advertisements under specific conditions. Subparagraph (a) requires that such advertisements should "not be misleading or deceptive," while subparagraph (f) mandates that "claims based on objective, measurable, and numerical data must be substantiated by scientific tests, reports, or documents." Additionally, Article 9, titled "Burden of Proof," specifies… »
Turkish Court of Cassation’s Highlighting Decisions on Conceptual Similarity Evaluation
In the 1st paragraph of Article 6 of the Industrial Property Law no. 6769, which regulates the relative refusal grounds in trademark registration, the existence of a likelihood of confusion requires the condition of “identicalness or similarity” of the trademarks along with the similarity of the goods and/or services. During the evaluation of the similarity between the trademarks, the focus is commonly gathered on visual, aural and semantic similarity. The existence of any… »
Calendarization Process for the Market Authorization of Medicines
Introduction The Guidelines for the Calendarization Process of Medicinal Products for Human Use (the “Guidelines”) aims to regulate the process for the market authorization applications on medicinal products for human use filed with the Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency (the “Agency”). The Agency has determined the procedures and principles for calendarization processes of the applications found eligible in the pre-assessments. The Guidelines has been initially… »
Infinity Case Highlights Importance of Global Appreciation
The Court of Cassation has approved the First Instance Court’s decision in a case involving several INFINITY marks, shedding light on the principle of global appreciation of trademarks in the similarity examination. Background On 8 January 2018 the applicant filed an application to register the trademark depicted below for “flying services by means of paragliding” in Class 41 before the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (PTO): After the application was published in… »