Turkey focus: Rosy outlook for the patent office
It’s been a big year for the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (Türk Patent), as it gets used to a revamped IP system and even a new name, following a rebranding from the Turkish Patent Institute (TPI).
The new IP Law was introduced in January 2017 and brought with it a host of changes across the IP spectrum, while Türk Patent began officially acting as an international authority for patent search and examination under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) just two months later. On top of that, the country’s Intellectual Property Academy and Intellectual Property Public Training Center opened this year.
Salih Bektas, head of the patent department, says the new legislation, which replaced several separate decree laws, has made it necessary to hire 50 new patent examiners in order to boost the office’s capacity. This should allow Türk Patent to become a leading IP office in the region and act as a bridge for IP knowledge between Europe and Asia.
The law has changed the face of the patent system, where applicants can now find a post-grant opposition mechanism and a more streamlined granting process. On the opposition front, third parties now have six months to challenge a patent after it has been granted, a move that Bektas says will make the patent system more reliable.
A further change concerns search reports, which the office must now prepare when examining applications for utility model patents. In addition, inventions originating from universities are now owned by the universities themselves, rather than the academics, but these individuals will receive at least one third of the income generated when the inventions are commercialised.
