Designs are among the most crucial elements directly influencing consumer preferences and highlighting consumer expectations in terms of aesthetics, durability, competitiveness, and price advantages, regardless of the product. With advancing technology, designs are becoming user-friendly products not only in terms of aesthetic appearance but also ergonomically.
By obtaining design registration, the design rights owner protects products that are created with significant effort and labor. This protection prevents unauthorized use, imitation, copying, market introduction, and unfair gain.
Under Article 55 of Industrial Property Law No. 6769, design is defined as the appearance of the whole or a part of a product or its ornamentation resulting from features such as lines, shapes, forms, colors, materials, or surface textures.
The following acts are considered outside the scope of design rights:
- Acts limited to private purposes and not for commercial purposes,
- Acts performed for experimental purposes,
- Reproductions for educational or reference purposes, provided they comply with the rules of honest commercial practice, do not unnecessarily jeopardize the normal exploitation of the design, and cite the source,
- Equipment on sea or air transport vehicles registered in a foreign country but temporarily within the borders of the Republic of Turkey, spare parts and accessories imported for the repair of these vehicles, and repair acts of these vehicles.
Products subject to design registration must be new and distinctive under Article 56 of the law. Designs are evaluated as either registered designs or unregistered designs in the law.
A registered design refers to designs that have gone through all the processes with the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office, obtaining a 5-year protection period. These designs can be renewed every five years, providing a total of 25 years of protection, after which they become public property.
According to Article 59 of the Industrial Property Law:
‘’A design shall confer on its holder the exclusive right to use it. Third parties without the consent of the design right holder cannot produce, put on the market, sell, import, use for commercial purposes or keep in stock for those puposes the product in which the design is incorporated or to which it is applied, or cannot make a recommendation for contract.’’
Unregistered design gives the right owner the right to prevent acts mentioned in the first paragraph, in case copies of identical designs or in respect of overall impression copies of indistinguishably similar designs are used. A design by an independent designer not being able to know through reasonable ways that the protected design is presented to the public prior to his design, shall not be deemed to have copied the design in the scope of the protection.
