Registration No Longer Constitutes Legitimate Use Defence in Turkey

Turkey has welcomed the new Intellectual Property Code (the IP Code) numbered 6769. This came force on January 10 2017.

One of the major changes in the new IP Code is an explicit provision in Article 155 preventing later dated IP registrations being submitted as a defence in infringement actions.

Before the IP Code, there was established case law from the Court of Appeals stating that use of a registered IP right could not be prevented until the invalidation of the right was obtained. This case law resulted in de facto immunity for infringers allowing them to safely continue their infringements. In particular, the design registration system (which is rather quick as there was no exofficio examination) was severely abused by infringers, and they obtained design registrations for the in fringing packaging or infringing products. These registrations allowed them to safely use the infringing items until the end of the invalidation proceedings (at the minimum between one