IP right owners suffer huge damages in some IP rights infringement cases as they invest substantial amounts in their IP rights. Therefore, compensation claims are of vital importance for them in order to recover their damages, to protect their reputation and create a deterrent impact on the infringing party.
In parallel with the previous regulations, the Industrial Property Code no. 6769 (“IP Code”) also provides highly advantageous provisions for compensation actions.
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It has now been over two years since the Industrial Property Code No. 6769 (“the IP Code”) came into force. While the interpretation and implementation of most of the issues in relation to the key changes introduced by the IP Code have been addressed by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (“TÜRKPATENT” or “the Office”), there are still some outstanding issues requiring interpretation by the Court of Appeals.
The primary legislative development in trademark law in 2018…
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Dicle Doğan and Fatma Sevde Tan, Gun + Partners
On 8 February 2019, the Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency published new Guidelines for the Off-Label Use of Drugs (Turkish language) and abrogated the previous version of the Guidelines, dated 18 July 2014. The new Guidelines entered into force upon publication.
The Guidelines reference a new system for applications for the off-label use of drugs. The system is named as the “System on Administration of Unauthorized…
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Özge Atılgan Karakulak and Fatma Sevde Tan, Gun + Partners
The Euro exchange rate used for approval of medicine prices in Turkey is determined as per the Decision on Pricing of Human Medicinal Products. The Decision which was published in the Official Gazette numbered 29989, dated 24 February 2017, set the Euro exchange rate as 70% of the average Euro value of the previous year. However, on 14 February 2019, an amendment (Turkish language) was published in the Official…
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Minimum wage, severance payments and administrative fines prescribed by the Labour Act are revised at the beginning of each calendar year.
Minimum wage
The minimum wage rate for 2018 was TL2,029.50 (gross) per month. As of 1 January 2019, this has increased to TL2,558.40 (gross) per month. The new rate applies from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019.
Minimum wage applies to all employees, regardless of age, industry and experience. The only exceptions are the coal and lignite…
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1. What kinds of incentive plan are most commonly offered and to whom?
The most prevalent type of monetary incentive plan in Turkey is bonus paid monthly or annually. For most of the employees this bonus may be calculated as sales commission calculated upon good or services sold to customer or the employees may receive project bonuses from the work performed with their team. The highest ranked employees may also benefit from profit sharing. Some of the companies also…
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Compulsory licensing (CL) has been one of the most important concepts in the new Turkish IP Law which entered into force in 2017. Although the concept is not new, the new Article 129, among others, provides the following possible conditions for granting a CL:
(i) failure to work or insufficient working that does not meet the national market needs before the expiration of a period of four years from the date of filing of the patent application or three years from the date of…
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Introduction
Transparency International announced the results of the 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index (the “2018 Index”) on January 29, 2019. As known, this study has been carried out and published by Transparency International since 1995, and reflects the public sector corruption perspective of experts, non-governmental organisations and representatives of the business world on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).
When compared to the 2017 results, Turkey…
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The Euro exchange rate used for approval of medicine prices in Turkey is determined as per the Decision on Pricing of Human Medicinal Products (“Decision”). The Euro exchange rate which has long been fixed to TRY 1.9595 and not updated according to the current rate was determined as 70% of the average Euro value of the previous year by the new Decision which was published on 24 February 2017. Accordingly, the Price Evaluation Commission would gather within the first 45 days…
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On 7 April 2016, a new law on the protection of personal data came into force in Turkey, Data Protection Law 6698 (Data Protection Law). It is the first law of its kind, regulating the protection of personal data, and also introducing many new obligations that persons or entities dealing with personal data (data controllers) must comply with.
Until 2016, the protection of personal data, except for certain regulated sectors, was regulated by a single provision in the Turkish…
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Introduction
In order to improve time and cost efficiency, in recent years the Turkish legislature has created legal initiatives to encourage private parties to settle through compromise rather than litigation. In this regard, mandatory mediation for commercial receivables has been recently introduced via the Law on Legal Procedures to Initiate Proceedings for Monetary Receivables arising out of Subscription Agreements (Law 7155) with new articles being added to the…
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The Public Policy Exception as an Unruly Horse
There is an ongoing quest for a uniform application of the New York Convention. However, the interpretation of the exceptions to enforcement still varies. Albeit applying the same provisions, national courts continue to adopt different approaches to the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. This is particularly true where the public policy exception is raised under Art. V(2)(b).
Considerable debate exists as to what the public…
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