Non-use in Türkiye: the five-year rule for foreign trademark owners

Many foreign brand owners register their mark in Türkiye early and start selling later, or never. That is a sensible way to secure a name, but the registration does not stay safe forever without use. This note explains the five-year rule in the Industrial Property Code No. 6769 and what you can do about it.

What the law says

Under Article 9 of the Code, a registered trademark can be revoked if, within five years of registration, it has not been put to genuine use in Türkiye for the goods or services it covers, or if its use has been suspended for an uninterrupted period of five years, unless there is a proper reason for non-use.

“Genuine use” means real commercial use in the market. Token or symbolic use, staged only to keep the registration alive, does not count.

Some points are easy to miss:

Revocation is not automatic. When the five years run out, the mark stays registered and valid. It is only revoked if someone files a request and the request succeeds.
Use by a licensee counts. Use with the owner’s consent is treated as use by the owner (Article 9(3)), so a distributor or licensee can keep the mark alive.
Small variations are fine. Use in a form that differs in elements which do not change the mark’s distinctive character still counts (Article 9(2)(a)).
Export use counts. Putting the mark on goods or packaging in Türkiye solely for export is also use (Article 9(2)(b)). This matters mostly when products are made in Türkiye.

Who decides: TÜRKPATENT, since 10 January 2024

Non-use cancellation used to be a court action. Since 10 January 2024 it is an administrative procedure: any interested person can file a revocation request with TÜRKPATENT, and the Office decides it (Article 26). The date comes from the Code itself, which brought Article 26 into force seven years after its publication.

In a revocation request:

The owner has to prove use. The request is notified to the trademark owner, who must answer with concrete evidence.
Revocation can be partial. If the mark is used for some of the registered goods or services but not others, only the unused ones are revoked (Article 26(5)).
Revocation takes effect from the date of the request and, on request, from an earlier date if the conditions were met earlier (Article 27(2)).

Late use and the three-month rule

If genuine use starts or resumes after the five-year period but before anyone files a revocation request, a request based on non-use is refused (Article 26(4)). Starting use late can therefore still save the mark.

There is one limit. Use that begins in the three months before the request is filed, when the owner already expected a request, is not taken into account. Use started in a hurry once a dispute is on the horizon will not help.

Non-use can also weaken your oppositions

An unused mark can also cost you without any revocation request. If you oppose a later application on the basis of likelihood of confusion and your mark has been registered for at least five years on the filing or priority date of that application, the applicant can ask you to prove genuine use during the five years before that date (Article 19(2)). If you cannot, the opposition is refused. If use is proven only for some goods or services, the opposition is examined for those alone.

The same defence is available in invalidation actions before the courts (Article 25(7)).

What counts as evidence of use

TÜRKPATENT’s Proof of Use Guide (Kullanım İspatı Kılavuzu, 2017) sets out how the Office weighs evidence of use. It was written for proof of use in oppositions and is not binding, but it is the clearest statement of what the Office expects, and its principles are a sound basis for defending a revocation request as well.

Taken together, the evidence has to show where, when, how much and in what form the mark was used, for the registered goods or services, clearly enough to be assessed without further explanation. There is no fixed minimum: what counts as enough depends on the goods and the market. The guide’s own examples: 1,000 wafers is not enough for a confectionery brand, while one aircraft sold in two years can be.

The main types of evidence, as the guide describes them:

Invoices. The strongest evidence: dated, recording sales in Türkiye (issued in Türkiye or addressed to customers there), showing the mark and the goods or services, and spread across the relevant period rather than bunched together. Where an invoice covers several marks or products, mark the relevant lines; where goods appear only as product codes, add a key that explains the codes.
Catalogues, price lists and product codes. Supporting evidence that links invoices to the mark and the goods. Dated material carries more weight.
Products, packaging and signage. Dated photographs of products on the shelf or ready for dispatch, of packaging (including how it changed over time) and of shop or service signage. Photographs are filed instead of physical samples.
Advertising and promotion. Ads and videos together with the invoices for them, promotional items, trade-fair participation and costs, market or opinion research.
Commercial figures for the brand. Turnover and profit for the branded goods or services (not just for the company), distribution channels, dealers and service network, export volumes, market share. Quality certificates and awards help as support.
Online sales. Screenshots of a website that clearly links the mark to the goods or services sold. Site statistics count as support when the mark is also the domain name.
Statements from independent sources. Customers, suppliers or experts. Concrete, detailed statements weigh more than general ones.

Points the guide stresses:

Use must be in Türkiye. Evidence of use abroad alone is not enough. Use in one region of the country can be sufficient, and use in Turkish free zones counts.
Trademark use, not just a company name. Using the sign only as a trade name or business name does not count; it has to identify the goods or services.
Use by others needs prior consent. Use by a licensee, a group company or a distributor counts, but the consent must exist before the use starts and should be documented: a licence or distribution agreement, or proof of the group link.
Token use does not count. Sales made only to keep the registration alive will not be accepted.

How the evidence is filed

For oppositions, the guide asks for evidence that is:

sorted by type, numbered and listed on the Office’s proof-of-use evidence form;
marked with the registration number at the top of every document, with the relevant parts highlighted and the page numbers and total page count given;
scanned in A4, not bound or stapled, ideally no more than 100 pages, with audio or video on a storage medium.

The deadline is strict: once proof of use is requested, the opponent has one month to file the evidence, and evidence filed late is not taken into account.

The evidence works best when it is dated, sorted by the registered goods and services, and collected continuously rather than gathered in a hurry once a challenge arrives.

Keeping a mark without a local office

You do not need a Turkish company or office to keep a mark in use. A practical route is a limited but genuine presence through a local distributor, reseller or licensee. The key goods or services in the registration are sold to real customers in Türkiye on a small but recurring basis, with the mark on the products, packaging or commercial documents.

Check each class. For goods or services you do not use, either start genuine use or consider limiting the registration to what you actually use.
Keep a use file. Archive evidence of use every year, so it is ready before anyone asks for it.
Plan ahead of the five-year date. If the mark matters to you in Türkiye, set up small-scale, documented use well before the fifth anniversary of registration.

If you would like us to check when your marks reach the five-year point and how well their use is documented, send us your list.

This note is general information, not legal advice. Article references are to the Industrial Property Code No. 6769. The evidence points follow TÜRKPATENT’s Proof of Use Guide (2017), a non-binding guideline. TÜRKPATENT publishes an English translation of the Code, which it notes is not endorsed for legal use: download the PDF or see it on WIPO Lex.