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  • TÜRKPATENT Issues Long Awaited Amendments on Implementing Regulations of IP Code Regarding Administrative Revocation of Trademarks

TÜRKPATENT Issues Long Awaited Amendments on Implementing Regulations of IP Code Regarding Administrative Revocation of Trademarks

Insights -
  • Article 26 of the Industrial Property Code, granting the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (“the Office”) the authority to revoke trademarks, came into force on January 10, 2024.
  • Fourteen months after the entry into force of the administrative revocation of trademarks, the Office published a regulation amending the regulation on the implementation of the administrative revocation of trademarks.

Background

With the entry into force of the Industrial Property Code no. 6769 (“IP Code”) on January 10, 2017, the administrative revocation of trademarks was introduced to Turkish Trademark Law. Article 26 of the IP Code, of which the implementation was postponed for 7 years, establishes that interested persons may request for the revocation of a trademark from the Office and the revocation of a trademark shall be decided by the Office in the absence of genuine use, becoming generic or misleading for registered goods or services and being used contrary to the technical specifications (for guarantee or collective marks).

Through the end of the seven-year period, on October 23, 2023, the Office published a Draft Regulation for Amendment of the Regulation on the Implementation of the Industrial Property Code (“Draft Regulation”) for comments[1] and as of January 10, 2024, the entry into force of the amendment on the regulation was expected to put the administrative revocation into operation.

But the regulation was not published despite expectations[2] and as of January 10, 2024, the Office started accepting revocation requests as “preliminary applications”; but could not begin examining them in terms of their merits due to the lack of implementing regulation. Fourteen months later, the Office finally published the Regulation on Amendment of the Regulation on the Implementation of the Industrial Property Code (“Regulation”) on March 15, 2025.

The Regulation

The published Regulation is mostly in line with the Draft Regulation, except for a few issues.

Article 30/A-3 of the Regulation sets forth that a revocation request can be filed by paying the legal fee along with the form containing certain information, including:

  • the registration and the goods or services subject to the revocation request;
  • the ID and contact information of the request owner and the trademark agent, if the request is made by a trademark agent (but a Power of Attorney is not necessary);
  • the grounds for the revocation request and information or documents regarding the grounds other than non-use claim.

Furthermore, unlike revocation court proceedings, it is not possible to direct a revocation request against more than one trademark at a time. The Regulation sets forth that it is not possible to request the revocation of multiple trademarks with one revocation request and if the interested persons wish to revoke more than one trademark, revocation requests shall be filed separately against each of one.

In addition, the applicant shall also explicitly mention if it wishes the revocation decision to be effective earlier than the revocation request date. Indeed, as per Article 27/2 of the IP Code, the revocation decision is effective as of the date of filing of the revocation request and if the revocation request owner believes that the revocation conditions have been fulfilled at an earlier date, it needs to be explicitly mentioned.

Under the Regulation, the request must be filed against the trademark proprietor or his/her legal successor and, if the trademark is assigned during the revocation proceedings, the request will continue to be heard against the new proprietor.

Article 30/A-5 of the Regulation sets forth that if the revocation request is not filed in accordance with Articles 30/A3 and 4, the Office will grant 1 month to the revocation request owner to fulfil the deficiencies, such as lack of payment of the official due, lack of certain information on the revocation request form and lack of information and documents on the reasoning and legal grounds of revocation request. If the deficiencies are not fulfilled within the prescribed period, the Office will dismiss the revocation request. The Regulation stipulates that a revocation request based on non-use filed against trademarks that are registered for less than 5 years will be directly dismissed.

After a properly filed revocation request, the Office will ask the trademark proprietor to file evidence proving the genuine use of the subject trademark on the goods and services for which the trademark is registered or evidence that shows the non-use relies on rightful grounds. Furthermore, any use, upon the motive that a revocation request may be filed, within the period of 3 months prior to the submission of a request to the Office shall not be taken into consideration. If no evidence is filed within the given period or if the evidence submitted is not found sufficient to prove the genuine use on the goods or services subject to the revocation request, the Office will accept the revocation request.

The trademark proprietor (against which a revocation request was filed) will have 1 month to file its evidence and information against the revocation request and an additional 1 month in case of request. The Office can also ask for additional documents and explanations if it deems necessary.

The above detailed procedure is in conformity with the IP Code; however, there is new sentence added to the Regulation mentioning that “a revocation decision cannot be rendered for similar goods or services”. We think that this provision is added to ensure that a trademark is not revoked for the goods/services for which use is proven, but this should not be extended to similar goods/services.

Finally, along with the Regulation, an additional fee has been introduced for revocation requests. More precisely, an application fee had already been determined for revocation requests and announced both with 2024[3] and 2025[4] fee tariffs published in the Official Gazette and the revocation requests were accepted along with this application fee as of April 24, 2024. Now, as of March 15, 2025, in addition to this application fee, the revocation request owners shall also pay an escrow fee which will be held in the escrow account until the Office renders its final decision on the revocation request. Upon the Office’s final decision if the revocation request is entirely rejected, the fee held in the escrow account will be refunded to the trademark proprietor upon request. If the revocation request is entirely accepted, the fee held in the escrow account will be refunded to the revocation request owner upon request. In cases where the Office partially accepts the revocation request, no payment is made to either party, or the amount held in the escrow account will be recorded as revenue for the Office.

We understand that the escrow fee is introduced as a deterrent factor to discourage trademark squatters or infringers who may target trademarks of genuine trademark owners by abusing the administrative revocation system[5] and we consider this new provision as a positive improvement which might also decrease the Office’s workload due to possible unfounded revocation requests. However, we think that it is inequitable for both parties to leave the escrow fee with the Office if the revocation is partially accepted/rejected. This part of the provision aims to make revocation request owners focus only on goods/services that are an obstacle to them, instead of requesting revocation of the trademark for all the goods/services for which it is registered, particularly if the request owner is not aware if the trademark is genuinely used (or not) for some goods/services.

The escrow amount is determined as TRY 23.458,33 for 2025 (approx. EUR 535 based on the exchange rate as of April 21, 2025) that needs to be paid in addition to the application fee which was determined in the amount of TRY 23.458,33 + VAT of 20% for 2025 (TRY 28.150 including VAT, approx. EUR 640 based on the exchange rate as of April 21, 2025). In this respect, for the revocation requests that will be filed as of March 15, 2025, the total amount that needs to be paid initially is TRY 46.916,66 (TRY 51.605,33 including VAT, approx. EUR 1.175 based on the exchange rate as of April 21, 2025).

On the other hand, it is determined that this escrow fee will not be applied retrospectively for the revocation requests that have already been filed until the entry into force of the Regulation – so before March 15, 2025.

Remarks

Albeit the lack of clarity in some provisions, the Regulation is welcomed by the stakeholders. It is expected that the Office shall resume procedures regarding the pending revocation requests that have been filed until the entry into force of the Regulation, by sending official letters informing revocation request owners of the deficiencies, if any, and proceed with the examination of the revocation requests as soon as possible to process the backlog. Considering that numerous revocation requests have been filed since January 10, 2024 and given that this is a new procedure, it is difficult to estimate how long it will take the Office to complete a revocation request procedure and issue a final decision.

Along with the newly introduced additional financial burden, we expect that unfounded revocation requests – particularly targeting well-known trademarks – shall not be common. Indeed, the sum of official fee and escrow amount determined for the year 2025 is significant when compared to other official fees paid to the Office and also the official fees paid before the EUIPO. Therefore, although it is still expected to be cost effective compared to a court action, the overall cost of the administrative revocation procedure should discourage those who might try to misuse the trademark registration system.

On the other hand, it is expected that the proceedings will be swift compared to court actions, considering that the procedure is simple and there is no expert examination phase as in the court proceedings. Further, it could be used as an instrument of a defence strategy in the litigation and opposition actions.

[1] https://www.worldtrademarkreview.com/article/pto-prepares-administrative-revocation-of-trademarks
[2] https://gun.av.tr/insights/articles/countdown-to-revocation-requests-at-the-tpto
[3] The “Communiqué on the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office Fee Tariff for the Year 2024” was published in the Official Gazette No. 32526 and dated April 24, 2024 and the official fee for revocation request has been determined as 16,300.00 TRY + VAT of 20% for 2024.
[4] The “Communiqué on the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office Fee Tariff for the Year 2025” was published in the Official Gazette No. 32769 and dated December 31, 2024 and the official fee for revocation request has been determined as 23,453.33 TRY + VAT of 20% for 2025.
[5] https://gun.av.tr/insights/articles/it-s-time-for-administrative-revocation-of-trademarks.

First published by Gün + Partners in Mar 20, 2025.