Industrial Design

Industrial design protects how a product looks, not how it works. Under the IPL, the appearance of the whole or part of a product resulting from features such as lines, colours, shape, materials or surface texture may be protected as a design.

Requirements

• Novelty: No identical design may have been made available to the public anywhere in the world before the filing date.
• Individual character: The overall impression the design produces on the informed user must differ from that produced by earlier designs.
• Grace period: Disclosures by the designer, or with their consent, within the twelve months before filing do not destroy novelty.

Features dictated solely by technical function and designs contrary to public order are not protected.

Term of Protection

• Registered design: Five years from filing, renewable in five-year periods up to a total of twenty-five years (IPL Article 69(1)).
• Unregistered design: Three years from first disclosure in Turkey (IPL Article 69(2)); protection covers copying only.

Application

The application to TÜRKPATENT includes images of the design and the product class (Locarno Classification). Several designs in the same class may be included in one application. The Office examines novelty and refuses designs found not to be new (IPL Article 64(6)); individual character is mainly examined upon opposition. Third parties may oppose within three months of publication of the registration (IPL Article 67(2)). Deferment of publication for up to thirty months may be requested.

Relationship with Other Rights

A product’s appearance may also be protected as a work under copyright law, and distinctive packaging as a trademark or under the prohibition of passing off. These forms of protection are cumulative. See Work of Authorship and Trademark.