Trademark Registration in Türkiye: A Foreign Owner's Guide

Trademark registration in Türkiye is the administrative grant of an exclusive right in a brand by TÜRKPATENT, the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office, under the Industrial Property Law No. 6769. It is a first-to-file system: as a rule the right belongs to the party that applies first, not to the party that used the mark first. An accepted application is published in the Official Trademark Bulletin, and any opposition — together with its grounds and proof that the opposition fee has been paid — must reach TÜRKPATENT within two months of that publication (article 18 of the Law, as in force as at July 2026). Once registered, the mark must be put to genuine use in Türkiye within five years (article 9), failing which it is exposed to revocation — a request decided by TÜRKPATENT itself rather than by the courts since 10 January 2024.

For an owner who cares about a brand in Türkiye, then, the most consequential fact is procedural rather than commercial. A foreign company that has traded under a name for years abroad can still find that someone else holds the Turkish registration. This guide sets out how the system works under Law No. 6769, who can apply and by which route, what the process involves, and the duty of use that keeps a registration alive.

First to file: why registration comes first

Under the Industrial Property Law No. 6769, trademark rights in Türkiye flow in principle from registration, and as a rule the register recognises the party that applied first. This is different from the instinct many foreign owners bring with them, that long use abroad or even in Türkiye automatically secures the name.

There are real qualifications. A genuine earlier user can, in defined circumstances, oppose a later application or seek to cancel a registration, and well-known marks enjoy protection under the Paris Convention even without a Turkish registration. But these are defensive arguments that are harder and costlier to run than simply holding the registration — and silence carries its own price. An owner who knew, or should have known, of the use of a later-dated mark and stayed silent for five consecutive years can no longer rely on its own mark as a ground of invalidity, unless the later registration was made in bad faith (article 25/6 of Law No. 6769, as in force as at July 2026). The practical rule is unchanged: if a brand matters in Türkiye, file for it early. Owners who are setting up a Turkish company at the same time should treat the trademark filing as part of the same launch, not a later afterthought.

Who can apply, and through which route

A foreign person or company can obtain a Turkish trademark by one of two routes. The first is a national application filed directly at TÜRKPATENT, the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office. The second is the Madrid Protocol: because Türkiye is a member, an owner can designate Türkiye in an international registration built on a home application or registration, rather than filing separately.

Whichever route is used, an applicant who has no domicile or real and effective commercial establishment in Türkiye must act through a registered Turkish trademark attorney. The attorney files the application, receives official notifications and manages examination, opposition and renewal — which is why appointing competent local representation is the first practical step, not a formality.

The registration process

The process has a recognisable shape. It begins with a clearance search of the register for earlier identical or similar marks in the relevant classes, because a conflict is far cheaper to discover before filing than after. The goods and services are then set out under the Nice Classification; the classes claimed define the scope of protection, so they should track real and intended use rather than be padded or left too narrow.

TÜRKPATENT then examines the application on absolute grounds — matters such as distinctiveness and descriptiveness. An accepted application is published in the Official Trademark Bulletin, opening a two-month window in which third parties may file an opposition on relative grounds, typically an earlier conflicting mark. Article 18 of Law No. 6769, as in force as at July 2026, is exacting about that window: the opposition must be filed in writing with its grounds, and the opposition fee must be paid and proof of payment submitted to the Office within the same two months. If the grounds are not submitted in time, the opposition is deemed never to have been filed. If there is no opposition, or an opposition is rejected, the mark proceeds to registration.

Protection, renewal and the duty to use

A registered trademark is protected for ten years from the application date, and that term is renewed in successive ten-year periods with no statutory limit on the number of renewals (article 23 of Law No. 6769, as in force as at July 2026). Renewal is not automatic: it must be requested in time, and a lapse can let the mark fall away.

Registration also comes with a duty. Under article 9 of Law No. 6769, as in force as at July 2026, a mark must be put to genuine use in Türkiye for the registered goods and services within five years of registration, and use must not then be suspended for an uninterrupted five-year period, unless there is a justified reason. A mark left unused becomes exposed to revocation for non-use at the request of an interested party. For this reason owners should keep dated evidence of real commercial use — invoices, packaging, advertising — from the outset.

The five-year use period cuts the other way as well, because it is also a defence available against the owner of an older mark. Where an opposition rests on likelihood of confusion and the earlier mark had been registered in Türkiye for at least five years at the application or priority date of the opposed application, the applicant may require the opponent to prove genuine use in Türkiye over the five years preceding that date, or justified reasons for non-use (article 19/2). The same defence may be raised in an invalidity action, where that five-year period is calculated from the date the action was filed (article 25/7). An owner who cannot evidence use, in other words, is weakened both as defendant and as opponent.

Cancellation and enforcement

Cancellation is where the system changed recently. Historically, requests to revoke a mark, including for non-use, were decided by the courts. Article 26 of Law No. 6769 moved that power to the Office, but by design it arrived late: under article 192 it entered into force seven years after the Law was published in the Resmî Gazete on 10 January 2017 (No. 29944) — that is, on 10 January 2024. Since that date revocation is handled administratively by TÜRKPATENT, while actions already pending before the courts on 10 January 2024 are concluded by those courts (provisional article 4). We examine the shift in detail in the 2025 administrative cancellation regime. For owners it cuts both ways: it is a faster route to clear away a blocking non-used mark, and an equally faster threat to a registration that is not being used.

Two distinctions are worth holding on to, both as in force as at July 2026. First, revocation and invalidity are not the same remedy and do not share a forum: invalidity (hükümsüzlük) is decided by the court, and TÜRKPATENT is not joined as a party to an invalidity action (article 25), whereas revocation (iptal) is decided by TÜRKPATENT on request (article 26). Second, a defensive burst of activity will not rescue an unused mark: use made in the three months before a revocation request is disregarded if it was made because such a request was anticipated (article 26/4).

On the enforcement side, the registration is the foundation for everything else. It supports infringement proceedings and injunctions, opposition to later conflicting applications, and customs recordation so that counterfeit goods can be detained at the border — the frontline of anti-counterfeiting work. An owner without a registration is left arguing unfair competition or well-known-mark status, which is harder ground. The registration, in short, is what converts a brand into a right that can be enforced. Our intellectual property and trademark practices handle filing, opposition and enforcement for foreign brand owners in Türkiye.

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Related Practice Areas

• Intellectual Property
• Trademark Registration & Litigation
• Patent Litigation
• Copyright & Anti-Piracy