The two registers answer different questions, and a company that assumes the first covers the second can find its own registered name ordered deleted. This note sets out what each regime gives, where they collide, and the order in which the two filings should be made.
Registering a company with a Turkish trade registry gives you a trade name, and a trade name is a real right — but it is not a trademark. Article 7(1) of Industrial Property Law No. 6769 is explicit that the trademark protection provided by that Law is obtained through registration, and the registration it means is a trademark registration before the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TÜRKPATENT), not an entry in the commercial register.
The practical consequence runs in both directions. A company that has only a trade registry entry cannot stop a competitor from selling under the same name; and a company that has only a trade registry entry can itself be ordered to delete that name from the register if it conflicts with someone else’s earlier mark. The second half of that sentence is the part that surprises founders, and it rests on Article 7(3)(e) and Article 29(1)(a) of Law No. 6769.
Two Registers, Two Questions
The two systems are often described as parallel. They are not. They are answering different questions, kept by different authorities, and each is largely blind to the other.
| Trade name (ticaret unvanı) | Trademark (marka) | |
|---|---|---|
| Governing law | Articles 39–52, Turkish Commercial Code No. 6102 | Industrial Property Law No. 6769 |
| What it identifies | The trader — the legal person behind the business | The goods or services — their commercial origin |
| Where it is kept | Trade registry of the place of the enterprise's centre (Art. 40(1)) | TÜRKPATENT register |
| How it arises | Registration and announcement; the right to use it belongs to its holder alone (Art. 50) | Registration; protection under the Law is obtained through registration (Art. 7(1)) |
| Examined against | Earlier trade names registered anywhere in Türkiye, where an addition is needed to distinguish (Art. 45) | Absolute grounds on the Office's own motion (Art. 5) and relative grounds on opposition (Art. 6) |
| Term | No renewal cycle | Ten years from the application date, renewable for ten-year periods (Art. 23(1)) |
| Use condition | You must trade under it (Art. 39(1)) | You must genuinely use it, or face revocation after five years (Art. 9(1)) |
| Transfer | Cannot be transferred separately from the enterprise (Art. 49(1)) | An asset in its own right, assignable and licensable |
The row that decides most disputes is the fifth. Article 45 of Law No. 6102 tells the registry to require a distinguishing addition where one is necessary to tell a trade name apart from another trade name already registered somewhere in Türkiye. It says nothing about the trademark register. Acceptance of your company name is therefore evidence that it did not clash with another company’s name. It is not a clearance against marks, and it should never be read as one.
What Articles 39–52 Actually Give You
The trade name chapter of Law No. 6102 is mostly a chapter of duties, with a short set of remedies at the end.
Article 39(1) obliges every trader to conduct the transactions of its commercial enterprise under its trade name and to sign notes and other documents relating to the enterprise under that name; the same article requires the registered name to be displayed legibly at the enterprise and the registry number, trade name, centre and, where applicable, registered website address to appear on commercial letters and on the documents underlying book entries. Article 40(1) sets the filing deadline: registration and announcement within fifteen days of the day the enterprise opens, at the registry of the place where the enterprise’s centre is located.
The freedom to choose the name is narrower than it looks. Article 43 lets joint stock, limited liability and cooperative companies choose their trade names freely, but only on condition that the field of activity is shown and subject to Article 46 — and the words “anonim şirket”, “limited şirket” or “kooperatif” must appear. Article 46 then bars additions capable of creating a false impression among third parties as to the trader’s identity or the size, importance and financial position of the enterprise, or that are contrary to the truth or to public order; the words “Türk”, “Türkiye”, “Cumhuriyet” and “Millî” may be placed in a trade name only by decision of the President.
Two further features separate a trade name from a brand asset. Under Article 49(1) it cannot be transferred to another person separately from the enterprise, and a transfer of the enterprise carries the name with it unless the contrary has been expressly agreed. And Article 51 backs the chapter with sanctions: breach of Articles 39 to 45 or 48 attracts an administrative fine whose amount is restated each year by a Ministry of Trade communiqué published in the Official Gazette, while breach of Article 46, or a transfer of the trade name contrary to Article 49, carries three months to two years’ imprisonment or a judicial fine.
Article 52 is the sword. Where a trade name is used by another contrary to commercial honesty, the holder may seek a declaration and a prohibition; where the offending name has been registered, its amendment in conformity with the law or its deletion; removal of the material situation resulting from the infringement; destruction of the means and relevant goods where necessary; and, where there is loss, pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages according to the degree of fault — the court also being able to award, as pecuniary damages, the equivalent of the benefit the infringer could have obtained. Under Article 52(2) the successful party may ask for the judgment to be published in a newspaper at the losing party’s expense.
Read the threshold carefully. Article 52 is not triggered by similarity alone; the claimant has to reach conduct contrary to commercial honesty. That is a materially harder case to build than the infringement claim available to a trademark owner, and it is the reason the same company name can be a weak position when you are enforcing and a fragile one when you are defending.
Why the Trade Name Is Not an Answer to a Trademark Claim
Law No. 6769 addresses this directly rather than leaving it to inference. Article 7(2) gives the owner the right to prevent unauthorised use of the sign; Article 7(3) then lists the situations that can be prohibited under that paragraph where the sign is used in the course of trade. Sub-paragraph (e) is use of the sign as a trade name or business name. Sub-paragraph (d) covers use of the same or a similar sign online as a domain name, redirecting code, keyword or similar, where the user has no right or legitimate connection to that use. Article 29(1)(a) closes the circuit by making use of the mark in the ways set out in Article 7 an act of infringement.
The defence most defendants reach for is not available to them. Article 7(5) prevents the owner from stopping certain honest uses in the ordinary course of commercial life, but sub-paragraph (a) is confined to natural persons stating their own name or address. A company cannot invoke it to keep using a corporate name that collides with an earlier mark, and no provision of Law No. 6769 lists a trade registry entry among the answers to an infringement claim. Article 155 makes the neighbouring point about industrial property rights: a trademark, patent or design holder cannot rely on its own right as a defence in an infringement action brought by a holder with an earlier priority or filing date.
For service businesses the reach of these provisions is wider. Article 7(3) lists, alongside use as a trade name (e), offering services under the sign (b) and use of the sign in business papers and advertising (ç), and it makes no exception for a name used exactly as registered in the commercial register. Where a defendant operating in the same service sector uses on signage, price lists, catalogues, advertising posters, service vehicles and staff uniforms a trade name carrying the same sign as an earlier registered mark, the court assesses on the facts whether those uses fall within Article 7(2), either as an identical sign used for identical services under (a) or as a similar sign creating a likelihood of confusion under (b). If infringement is found, the holder may ask under Article 149(1) for the infringing acts to be stopped and the infringement removed, and under sub-paragraph (g) of the same paragraph for publication of the final judgment; where the infringement lies in the trade name itself, that claim can take the form of removing the offending element from the defendant’s trade name. The commercial register can thus be corrected as the consequence of a trademark finding.
The Trade Name as a Sword Inside the Trademark System
The relationship is not one-way. Article 6(6) of Law No. 6769 provides that where an application contains another person’s personal name, trade name, photograph, copyright or any intellectual property right, the application is refused upon the opposition of the right holder. Where the sign was already being used in trade before the application or priority date, Article 6(3) gives a second ground based on a right acquired through an unregistered mark or another sign used in trade.
Both grounds share the same architecture, and it is the architecture rather than the merits that catches foreign owners. These are relative grounds: TÜRKPATENT does not raise them on its own motion. They must be raised by opposition, and Article 18(1) gives two months from publication of the application in the Bulletin, with the grounds and the fee inside the same period. The mechanics of that window are set out in our note on opposing a trademark application in Türkiye. If the window closes, Article 25(1) still allows an invalidity action before the court on the same Article 6 grounds, but that is a slower and heavier route.
Delay costs differently in each direction, and the difference is worth holding on to. Against a later registered trademark, Article 25(6) sets a hard rule: an owner who knew, or should have known, that a later mark was being used and remained silent for five consecutive years cannot rely on its mark as a ground of invalidity, unless the later registration was made in bad faith. Against a trade name there is no statutory equivalent. The trade name provisions of Law No. 6102 (Articles 39 to 52) do not regulate loss of a right through silence at all; such a defence can only rest on the good faith rule and the prohibition of manifest abuse of rights in Article 2 of Turkish Civil Code No. 4721. The Law states no fixed period; the court examines on the facts what the earlier right holder did once it learned of the use.
Where the Two Regimes Collide in Practice
Most files fall into one of a small number of recognisable shapes, and the shape decides the forum before it decides the argument.
| Situation | Governing provision | Forum | What is available |
|---|---|---|---|
| Another company registers a trade name confusingly close to yours | Art. 52(1), Law No. 6102 — use contrary to commercial honesty | Commercial court | Declaration, prohibition, amendment or deletion of the registered name, damages, publication |
| A company trades under a name that reproduces your earlier registered mark | Art. 29(1)(a) with Art. 7(3)(e), Law No. 6769 | Civil court for intellectual and industrial property rights | The Article 149 claims — declaration, prevention, cessation, removal with damages, seizure, publication |
| A third party applies to register your trade name as a trademark | Art. 6(6), and Art. 6(3) for prior use in trade | TÜRKPATENT, on opposition | Refusal of the application — but only within two months of publication (Art. 18(1)) |
| The application window has closed and the mark is registered | Art. 25(1), with the Art. 25(6) five-year acquiescence bar | Civil court for intellectual and industrial property rights | Invalidity on the same relative grounds |
| Your own trade name is attacked by an earlier mark holder | Art. 7(5)(a) is confined to natural persons; Art. 155 rules out a later industrial property right as a defence | Civil court for intellectual and industrial property rights | Deletion of the element from your trade name, with publication |
Two of these rows tend to arrive together. A brand dispute that begins as a trademark claim usually ends with a trade registry consequence, and a dispute that begins in the commercial register usually turns on who filed a mark first. The corresponding position where a local commercial partner has filed the brand in its own name is set out separately in our note on what to do when a Turkish distributor registers your trademark.
The Sequence That Avoids the Problem
The order of the filings matters more than the sophistication of any one of them.
Search both registers before the name is fixed. A single search of the trade registry answers only the Article 45 question. A trademark search across the relevant classes answers the question that will actually be litigated. Doing both at the point where the name is still a document rather than a signboard costs very little; doing them after incorporation converts a search result into a rebranding budget.
File the trademark application early, and file it for what you will actually sell. Protection under Law No. 6769 runs from registration, and the register is worked on a first-to-file basis, so the application date is the asset. The filing route, the class specification and the Madrid alternative are covered in our guide to trademark registration in Türkiye. Resist the instinct to file across whole classes you have no plan for: Article 9(1) exposes unused coverage to revocation after five years, and the practical mechanics of that exposure are set out in our note on non-use cancellation.
Keep the two entries aligned once both exist. The trade name and the mark should sit with entities whose relationship is documented, particularly in group structures where a local subsidiary is incorporated but the brand belongs to the parent; the incorporation-stage decisions that create or avoid that mismatch are discussed in our guide to setting up a company in Türkiye and handled as part of company formation work. Watch the Bulletin so that the two-month window in Article 18(1) is a diary entry rather than a discovery, and treat any letter alleging conflict between a name and a mark as a matter for trademark litigation advice at once, because the answer given in the first exchange is quoted back later. The wider portfolio questions — classes, renewals, assignments, enforcement policy — belong to ongoing intellectual property housekeeping rather than to the incorporation file.
None of this makes the trade registry entry unimportant. It is compulsory, it carries its own sanctions, and Article 52 gives it teeth. But it answers the question “who is this trader?” and not the question “whose brand is this?” Only one register answers the second, and in Türkiye it is the one at TÜRKPATENT.
