Intellectual property management of international companies is generally conducted by a specific department, which is located in a particular country. This department evaluates the invention ideas coming from company's operating R&D centers in countries, makes a patent application decision, and carries out the application-registration process of performed patent applications by creating a budget with a specific registration strategy. In Turkey, both the requirement of new Industrial Property Law and the basic application innovation and production on benefiting from patent-based tax advantages, necessitate making patent application initially to Turkish Patent and Trademark Office for the inventions in Turkey. These are presented below together with the relevant legislation.
THE NEW INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY LAW (Law No. 6769)
Article 9 of 'Regulation on Employees' Inventions' dated 29 September 2017 prescribes the obligation of the employer to employees' inventions and it is in reference to the relevant article of the Law. Article 116 of the Law No. 6769dated 11 January 2017 regulates the filing patent application for an in-service invention with regard to the obligation to make a patent application and makes it mandatory for the first application to be made to the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office in case the employer requests full rights for the in-service invention or that a patent application is filed on behalf of the employer.
In the Regulation, payment of incentive prizes to the employee after the first application was made by the employer to the Office and also to pay an amount calculated by the gain from the invention were regulated. Besides, these obligations are regulated to take place within two months after the notification of conformity, pursuant to the first application to the Office regarding the invention in question.
According to the preemptive right arising from the Paris Convention after the first application is filed with the Office, the applicant employer has the right to make an overseas patent application within 12 months. (Article 116(5)(6) of Law No. 6769 )
As it can be seen, the employer has to evaluate an invention put forward by the employee in a serious and institutional way and to plan the whole patent strategy detailedly starting from our country.
The Corporate Tax General Communiqué Serial No 1
Under the The Corporate Tax General Communiqué Serial No 1 and the relevant articles of Communiqué Serial No 11 which published regarding amendment in Communiqué Serial No 1 (especially article 5.12 and below), it is regulated that 50% of the portion attributed to the invention with patented or utility model certification of the profits derived from the use in the production process of the inventions developed as a result of the research and development, innovation and software activities carried out in Turkey, are exempt from corporate tax pursuant to article 5/B of the Corporate Tax Law No. 5520.
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