Home About Us Services Awards Team Insights Career Contact Us TÜRKÇEENGLISH Devin Patent — Istanbul

Devin Patent · Service Areas

Our Services

Eight service areas covering the full life of an industrial property right: searches and filing strategy, prosecution before TÜRKPATENT, international registration through Madrid, the PCT, the Hague System and EUIPO, watch and renewal programmes, recordals, domain names and geographical indications.

Court proceedings and advisory work: Devin Law & IP →

03Industrial DesignsDesign protection under Industrial Property Code No. 6769 rewards preparation.

Industrial Designs

Design protection under Industrial Property Code No. 6769 rewards preparation. We assess whether an appearance is new and has individual character before anything reaches the register, prepare the visuals that will later define the scope of protection, and manage filings before TÜRKPATENT, EUIPO and the Hague System. Our team reads the decisions behind each criterion, so the file is built with future disputes already in mind.

A design is registrable when it is new and has individual character, and both tests turn on what an informed user would perceive. Before filing we search the registers, the applicant's own catalogues and the market, because a company's earlier launch is the most common obstacle we find. Where disclosure has already happened, the twelve month grace period counted back from the filing or priority date often saves the file, provided the disclosure came from the designer or a successor in title. That analysis is recorded so it can be relied on later.

What is registered is the set of visuals, not the description, so the drawings and photographs decide how far protection reaches. We choose views, backgrounds and line treatment deliberately: broken lines and neutral surfaces to disclaim what should stay free, consistent lighting where surface finish matters. Multiple applications keep costs down when several designs belong to the same Locarno class, but they also invite a single objection to touch the whole set, so we group them by product class and commercial priority rather than by convenience.

After publication, third parties may oppose within the statutory period, and we prepare both sides of that exchange with the evidence the examiners actually weigh: dated catalogues, invoices, fair records and register extracts. Registrations are renewed in five year terms up to twenty five years, and assignments, licences and address changes are recorded so the register matches the group structure. Unregistered designs made available to the public in Turkey enjoy three years of protection against copying, but the burden of proving the date and the act of copying sits with the holder.

Our work ends at the register. Invalidity actions against a registered design, infringement proceedings, preliminary injunctions and damages claims are handled by our law firm Devin Law & IP at devinlaw.com.tr, and we hand over a file that is ready for them: the search record, the disclosure timeline, the prosecution history and every visual exactly as it was filed. Because the same reasoning that decides a dispute also decides which views to file, that continuity is the practical benefit of a team trained to read decisions rather than only forms.

Design decisions are made long before a form is signed. This group covers the work that determines whether a design can be registered at all and how much ground the registration will hold: searching the field, dating every disclosure, and shaping the visuals that will define the scope. The output is a written position the applicant can act on.

Novelty & Individual Character
  • Register and market searches before filing, covering the applicant's own product history
  • Assessment against the informed user standard rather than the ordinary consumer test
  • Comparison of overall impression, taking the designer's degree of freedom into account
  • Identification of features dictated solely by technical function and excluded from protection
  • Review of earlier designs in the same Locarno class and neighbouring sectors
  • Written opinion on registrability with the risks stated plainly and never softened
  • Guidance on how far a design should be varied to gain separate protection
Disclosure & Grace Period
  • Timeline of every disclosure: fairs, catalogues, social media and distributor samples
  • Use of the twelve month grace period counted from filing or priority date
  • Verification that the disclosure came from the designer or a successor in title
  • Evidence packages that fix the date of first disclosure with dated records
  • Confidentiality arrangements for supplier and prototype stages before any public launch
  • Coordination of launch dates with filing dates across each of the target markets
  • Warning where a foreign register offers no comparable grace period at all
Scope of Protection
  • Visual strategy that sets the boundary of protection before the first filing
  • Use of broken lines and neutral backgrounds to disclaim the unclaimed elements
  • Decision between protecting a whole product, a single part or an ornamentation
  • Separate filings for variants that would otherwise fall outside the overall impression
  • Alignment of design filings with trade mark and patent cover for the same product
  • Consideration of how competitors could design around the views actually filed
  • Records kept so the scope can be explained years later in a dispute
Informed user, not average consumerThe comparison is made through the eyes of a user familiar with the existing designs of the sector. That standard is stricter than the trade mark test, and it explains why small but visible differences can carry a design over the line.
Twelve month grace periodDisclosure by the designer or a successor in the twelve months before the filing or priority date does not destroy novelty. The period is a rescue, not a plan: it does not exist in every foreign register, and it must be proved with dated records.
Function excluded from protectionAppearance features dictated solely by a technical function stay outside the registration, as do parts that must be reproduced exactly to fit another product. Knowing which lines fall away tells the applicant what the registration really covers before money is spent on it.
Visuals define the scopeA design registration protects what the filed views show and nothing more. Choosing perspectives, deciding what to leave in broken lines and controlling the quality of the images is therefore the single decision with the longest consequences in the file.

This group is the filing work itself: naming and classifying the product, assembling the visuals, choosing between single and multiple applications, and carrying the file through examination at TÜRKPATENT, EUIPO or the Hague System. Every step is documented, because the file created here is the file that will be read if the design is ever challenged.

TÜRKPATENT Filings
  • Preparation and electronic filing of design applications before TÜRKPATENT without delay
  • Correct product naming and Locarno classification for every design in the file
  • Designer declarations, assignments from employees and chain of title documents
  • Priority claims based on an earlier foreign filing within the six month term
  • Responses to formal deficiency notices within the period given by the office
  • Monitoring of publication in the Official Design Bulletin after registration decision
  • Delivery of the registration certificate together with a written scope note
Multiple Applications & Visuals
  • Grouping of designs into multiple applications by Locarno class and commercial priority
  • Cost comparison between one multiple application and several separate design filings
  • Technical review of every image for resolution, background, shadow and view consistency
  • Selection of perspectives that show the features carrying the individual character
  • Broken line treatment for elements deliberately left outside the requested protection
  • Preparation of drawings where photographs would import unwanted surface detail
  • Numbering and ordering of designs so each one can be defended on its own
  • Archive of the filed visuals in original quality for later evidentiary use
EU and Hague Route
  • Registered Community design filings before EUIPO for the whole European Union market
  • International design registrations through the Hague System from a single application
  • Selection of contracting parties according to production, distribution and export routes
  • Deferment of publication where a launch date has not yet been reached
  • Coordination of the same visuals across the national, EU and Hague files
  • Handling of refusal notifications issued by individual designated offices abroad
  • Renewal calendars kept in one place for all registrations of the same family
Multiple application, shared riskSeveral designs in the same Locarno class can be filed together at a lower cost per design. The saving is real, but a single objection reaches the whole set, so grouping follows product class and commercial weight rather than administrative convenience.
Locarno classification decides groupingThe Locarno class determines which designs may share one application and how the office indexes the product. A wrong or careless product name narrows searchability and complicates later evidence, so classification is checked against the actual commercial article.
Image quality decides the scopeBlurred, shadowed or inconsistent images shrink what the registration can be said to cover. Because the register shows only what was filed, the technical quality of each view is treated as part of the scope and not as a production detail.
Deferment before launchPublication can be deferred where the product has not yet reached the market, keeping the appearance out of public view while the filing date is secured. The deferment period and its expiry are diarised so the design is not lost by silence.

A registration is only the beginning of the work. This group covers opposition and appeal before TÜRKPATENT, the renewals and recordals that keep the register accurate for the whole term, and the narrower unregistered protection that applies where nothing was filed. Each of them depends on evidence collected early rather than assembled under pressure.

Oppositions Before TÜRKPATENT
  • Opposition against published designs within the statutory period following bulletin publication
  • Grounds based on lack of novelty, lack of individual character or bad faith
  • Evidence of earlier disclosure: dated catalogues, invoices, fair records and web archives
  • Defence of the applicant's own design against oppositions filed by competitors
  • Appeals to the Re-examination and Evaluation Board against unfavourable office decisions
  • Written submissions built on the Board's consistent practice and reported case law
  • Assessment of settlement or coexistence where both sides hold usable earlier rights
  • Clear reporting after each stage, including the realistic prospects of the file
Renewals & Recordals
  • Renewal in five year terms up to a maximum protection period of twenty five years
  • Reminders sent well before the term ends and again before the grace period closes
  • Recordal of assignments, mergers, licences, pledges and change of address details
  • Correction of register entries that no longer match the current group structure
  • Portfolio reports showing every design, its term, its class and its owner
  • Decisions on which designs to abandon when the product line has been discontinued
  • Register extracts prepared for customs recordals, tenders and due diligence requests
Unregistered Designs
  • Three years of protection against copying for designs first made available in Turkey
  • Fixing the date of first disclosure with dated, verifiable and independent records
  • Evidence files built while the product is launched, not after a copy appears
  • Explanation of the burden of proof that rests on the unregistered design holder
  • Comparison of the unregistered term with the twenty five years a registration gives
  • Advice on which seasonal or short life designs justify a registration cost
  • Preparation of the disclosure record that any later action would need
Opposition rests on dated evidenceNovelty is attacked with proof of what existed before the filing date. Catalogues, invoices, fair records and archived pages carry weight only when their date is verifiable, which is why the evidence file is built long before the opposition is drafted.
Twenty five year maximum termProtection runs in five year periods and ends after twenty five years, with no further extension available. Renewal deadlines and the following grace period are diarised centrally, because a design lost to a missed date cannot be filed again as new.
Unregistered protection is narrowThree years of protection against copying begins when the design is first made available to the public in Turkey. It covers copying only, not independent creation, and the holder must prove both the disclosure date and the act of copying.
Court action goes elsewhereInvalidity and infringement proceedings, preliminary injunctions and damages claims are conducted by Devin Law & IP at devinlaw.com.tr. Our part is to keep the register clean and the evidence dated so that the file transfers without gaps.

Insights on this area

Industrial DesignRegistering an Industrial Design: What the Twelve-Month Grace Period Really Costs4 August 2026Maritime & IPYacht Design Agreements: Class Approval, Flag State Rules and the Buildability Warranty26 August 2026