In Turkey, intellectual property due diligence is no longer a niche exercise reserved for large cross-border acquisitions. It has become a core part of fundraising, venture investment, private M&A, joint ventures, distribution deals, licensing, technology transfers, and founder exits. That is because Turkish law treats intellectual property as a real commercial asset class: trademarks, patents, utility models, designs, and copyright can all shape valuation, exclusivity, enforcement leverage, and financing potential. Turkey’s current industrial property framework is built mainly on Law No. 6769 on Industrial Property, which entered into force on January 10, 2017 and, in WIPO Lex’s latest consolidated record, is shown as amended through July 28, 2020. Copyright, by contrast, sits in a separate framework under Law No. 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works, whose latest WIPO Lex consolidation reflects amendments through December 25, 2021.
A Turkish IP due diligence review should therefore begin with a structural point: there is no single “IP register” covering everything. WIPO’s Turkey profile identifies two separate national IP authorities: the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TÜRKPATENT) for industrial property and the Directorate General for Copyright under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for copyright matters. For investors and buyers, that means an IP audit in Turkey must separate registered industrial rights from copyright, software, content, and know-how. Treating them as one undifferentiated asset pool is one of the fastest ways to miss hidden defects.
The commercial reason this matters is simple. A startup may look “IP-rich” on a pitch deck but still have weak title, missing assignments, unrecorded licenses, vulnerable trademarks, or patents burdened by security interests. A target company may show strong branding but have a non-use problem, an expiring renewal deadline, or rights sitting in a founder’s name rather than the operating company. A buyer may acquire product documentation and software repositories without actually acquiring the underlying exploitation rights. Under Turkish law, these are not technical side issues. They can directly affect enforceability, transferability, and the buyer’s ability to use the asset after closing.
The first question: what kind of IP is actually in the deal?
The first stage of Turkish IP due diligence is asset classification. Under Law No. 6769, industrial property includes trademarks, designs, patents, utility models, geographical indications, and traditional product names. TÜRKPATENT’s own description of its duties confirms that it registers patents, utility models, trademarks, designs and other industrial property rights, and also registers license and transfer agreements. Separately, WIPO’s Turkey profile and the copyright-law record confirm that copyright and related rights are governed outside this system under Law No. 5846. That means a due diligence exercise should identify which assets are registry-based and which are not.
That classification step sounds basic, but it often drives the whole transaction. A consumer brand deal may be trademark-heavy. A medtech target may revolve around patents, utility models, and employee-invention paperwork. A design-led product company may depend heavily on design registrations and unregistered design exposure. A software startup may have very little value in the TÜRKPATENT registries but substantial value in copyright, source code, databases, and confidential implementation know-how. In Turkish practice, the asset type determines both the legal questions and the evidence trail.
Trademark due diligence in Turkey
For many transactions, the trademark portfolio is still the first and most important review area. TÜRKPATENT’s trademark guidance states that trademark protection in Turkey is governed by Law No. 6769, that the system includes formal examination, absolute-grounds examination, publication, opposition review, appeals, registration, and renewal, and that third parties may oppose published applications within two months. The same official page states that a registered trademark is protected for ten years from the application date, renewable for successive ten-year periods, with a further six-month late-renewal window on payment of an additional fee.
For a buyer or investor, the practical consequence is that trademark due diligence in Turkey is not just about confirming whether a registration exists. It is about checking filing status, class coverage, publication history, opposition exposure, registration status, renewal dates, and whether the rights actually sit in the correct entity. A common problem in Turkish startup deals is that the mark is filed in the founder’s name, a foreign parent’s name, or an old distributor’s name instead of the operating company seeking investment. Another is that the filing covers too little, leaving the core commercial activity outside the most defensible classes. Those are due diligence red flags because they affect both control and enforcement.
Non-use risk is another critical point. In the Industrial Property Code, Article 9 provides for cancellation where a mark is not genuinely used in Turkey for the registered goods or services within five years from registration or where use is suspended for an uninterrupted five-year period. Article 26, in the current consolidated law, places cancellation before the Office upon request, and TÜRKPATENT’s 2026 trademark-fee schedule now includes both a trademark cancellation request fee and a deposit for a trademark cancellation request, which confirms that cancellation is part of the live administrative environment rather than a dormant concept. For due diligence, that means the review should not stop at the certificate. It should ask whether the mark is actually used, by whom, on what goods or services, and with what documentary proof.
That use question is especially important in acquisition and growth-capital deals because a nominally strong portfolio can be structurally weak if the target has not preserved evidence. TÜRKPATENT’s official page also explains the proof-of-use mechanism in opposition practice for older marks. From a diligence perspective, the message is broader: if the target says its Turkish trademark rights are valuable, it should be able to show real commercial use in Turkey through invoices, packaging, website captures, catalogues, ads, customs records, distributor documents, or other market evidence.
Patent and utility model due diligence
If the deal involves technology, engineering, or industrial innovation, patent and utility model diligence becomes central. Under Article 101 of Law No. 6769, the patent term is twenty years from the filing date and the utility model term is ten years, and those periods cannot be extended. The same article also states that annual fees are due throughout the protection period and that late payment is possible only within a limited extra period; failing that, the right lapses, subject to a limited restoration mechanism. TÜRKPATENT’s 2026 fee pages reflect this structure through patent annual fees up to year 20 and utility model annual fees up to year 10.
For investors and buyers, this means the patent question in Turkey is not simply “is there a patent?” The real questions are whether the applications or grants are still alive, whether annual fees have been paid, whether the protection term is already running short, whether the claims still match the target’s actual product or technology roadmap, and whether the company is relying on patents or utility models in a field where utility model protection is legally unavailable or strategically thin. That last point matters because Turkish law excludes certain subject matter from utility model protection, including chemical, biological, pharmaceutical, biotechnological, and certain process-related inventions.
Another Turkish-specific diligence point is prosecution posture. The Industrial Property Code provides formal routes for search, examination, post-grant opposition for patents, and conversion between patent and utility model applications. TÜRKPATENT’s patent and utility fee schedules also show fees for converting a patent application into a utility model application and for the reverse direction, which means conversion is not theoretical. In diligence, that matters because the file history may show whether the applicant originally pursued a stronger patent path and later stepped down, or started as a utility model and later sought patent-level protection. That history can reveal how strong the core invention really is.
The target’s standing in the technology chain also matters. TÜRKPATENT’s “About Us” page states that the Office registers license and transfer agreements and follows the use of inventions. If a company presents patents as a core value driver, diligence should review assignment history, exclusive and non-exclusive licenses, any open “offer to license” recordals, and any pledge or security-interest registrations. TÜRKPATENT’s official fee pages show that patents and utility models can be the subject of assignment recordals, licence recordals, inheritance transfers, structural-change recordals, and recordal of pledges or security interests. For a buyer, that means the patent portfolio may already be encumbered even where the seller describes it as “owned.”
Design due diligence
Design rights are often under-reviewed in Turkish deals, especially in consumer products, furniture, fashion-adjacent sectors, packaging, hardware, and visually distinctive goods. But Article 69 of Law No. 6769 makes clear that registered designs are protected for five years from the filing date, renewable in five-year blocks up to a total of twenty-five years, while unregistered designs are protected for three years from first disclosure to the public. For any target whose value depends heavily on product appearance, design rights should be reviewed with the same seriousness as trademarks.
The diligence questions here are practical. Is the design registered or only relying on unregistered protection? If registered, how much term remains? If unregistered, when and where was first disclosure made, and what evidence exists? Has the target documented launches, catalogues, fairs, digital publication dates, and market introduction in a way that could prove the existence and timing of unregistered rights? In Turkey, these questions can affect both enforceability and valuation. A design-driven business that cannot prove first disclosure or registration history may be less protected than it appears.
Chain of title and recordal: the heart of Turkish IP due diligence
One of the most important provisions for transaction lawyers is Article 148 of Law No. 6769. It states that industrial property rights may be transferred, inherited, licensed, pledged, used as collateral, attached, or made the subject of other legal transactions. It also states that these transactions can be carried out independently of the business itself, that they are subject to written form, that transfer agreements are valid only if notarized, and that transactions may be recorded in the registry and published in the Bulletin. Most importantly for diligence, the article provides that, subject to Article 115, rights arising from legal transactions not recorded in the registry cannot be asserted against good-faith third parties.
That single article creates several due diligence workstreams. First, title should be verified not only contractually but registrally. Second, a buyer should check whether assignments were properly notarized where required. Third, a buyer should ask whether licences, pledges, or other transactions were recorded. Fourth, the review should ask whether any seller-side explanation depends on an unrecorded arrangement that may be vulnerable against third parties. Turkish law does not say that every unrecorded contract is void between the parties, but it clearly makes recordal highly relevant in a transaction environment.
TÜRKPATENT’s official fee schedules reinforce how real this issue is in practice. The trademark-fee schedule lists fees for recording transfers, structural changes, inheritance transfers, licence registration and renewal, and recording a pledge. The patent and utility model schedules likewise list assignment, licence, inheritance, structural-change, and pledge/security-interest recordals. In other words, Turkish due diligence should treat the register as a commercial reality, not just a ceremonial database.
Employee inventions and founder-era ownership problems
For investors and acquirers of tech businesses, employee invention ownership is a major Turkish diligence issue. WIPO Lex records a dedicated 2017 Regulation on Employee Inventions, Inventions Realized within Higher Education Institutions and Inventions Arisen from Projects Supported by Public Authorities, issued pursuant to Articles 113 to 122 of Law No. 6769. That alone tells you something important: Turkish law does not leave inventor-origin questions entirely to generic employment clauses. There is a specific legal framework for employee inventions and related categories.
In a startup or scale-up, that means investors should review more than the cap table and patent certificates. They should ask who actually created the inventions, under what employment or consultancy status, with what notices, and under which internal policy or agreement. If the R&D was conducted in a university setting, a public-supported project, or through mixed founder-consultant arrangements, the ownership analysis can be more complex than the company’s narrative suggests. In Turkish diligence, “the company developed it” is not enough; the paper trail on inventorship and employer entitlement matters.
Copyright, software, and content diligence
A Turkish IP review that focuses only on TÜRKPATENT misses a major part of the risk in software, media, publishing, creative-tech, gaming, SaaS, and digital product businesses. WIPO’s current record for Law No. 5846 shows that copyright and related rights are governed separately and that the competent public authority is the Directorate General for Copyright. The 2023 WTO/TRIPS notification for Turkey describes Law No. 5846 as the main instrument governing copyright and notes that it has been amended repeatedly to align with international conventions, EU acquis, technological developments, and enforcement needs.
For due diligence, that means software, databases, source code, interface design, videos, training materials, website text, product photography, marketing assets, and other content should be reviewed through chain-of-title analysis rather than through registry logic alone. The key questions are who authored the work, whether the company obtained a valid assignment or licence, whether contractors signed the right documents, whether open-source issues exist, and whether the target’s outbound licensing and inbound dependencies are consistent with its business model. Because Turkish copyright sits outside the industrial-property registry architecture, gaps here can remain invisible until litigation or diligence uncovers them.
Searchability and verification tools
A good Turkish IP diligence process should verify, not merely accept, the seller’s schedule. TÜRKPATENT provides official research and file-tracking tools for trademarks and designs, and its main site also provides access points for patent and utility model matters. WIPO’s Turkey profile likewise points users to the Global Brand Database, PATENTSCOPE, and the Global Design Database for Turkey-related records and to TÜRKPATENT as the national office. In practical terms, this means diligence teams should compare the target’s internal list against public records rather than relying on management summaries alone.
Registry verification is also important because Turkish rights can be affected by partial transfers, class limits, structural changes, inheritance transfers, recordal timing, and publication status. A business may honestly believe it owns “the brand” or “the patent family,” but the register may show a narrower or more complicated reality. That is why Turkish IP diligence is not just a document collection exercise; it is a reconciliation exercise between what the company says, what the contracts show, and what the public record says.
International filings and Turkey-specific exposure
Turkey is integrated into the main international filing systems. WIPO’s Turkey profile shows Turkey in the PCT, Madrid, and Hague environments and provides both office-of-origin and designated-office access points for those systems. TÜRKPATENT’s trademark page also explains that protection in Turkey may be sought either by direct national filing or through the Madrid System, and that Turkey is a member of the Madrid Protocol. For diligence, this matters because a target may rely on international designations or PCT/Hague strategies instead of national-only filings.
The due diligence question, however, is not just whether international filings exist. It is whether Turkish protection actually results from them, whether national-phase or designation requirements were completed correctly, whether deadlines were met, and whether the Turkish asset sits in the same ownership chain as the rest of the international portfolio. International filing strategy can strengthen a portfolio, but it can also conceal Turkish-specific weak points if nobody checks the local consequences.
What investors, buyers, and startups should care about most
For investors, the key Turkish IP question is usually control: does the company truly control the rights it says are central to its value? For buyers, the key question is transferability: can those rights move cleanly at closing, and are they free from unrecorded or undisclosed burdens? For startups, the key question is future-proofing: are the filings, assignments, employee-invention documents, and licences being structured now in a way that will survive diligence later? Turkish law makes all three questions legitimate because it expressly allows transfers, licences, pledges, security interests, and cancellation actions, and because it distinguishes sharply between registered industrial rights and copyright-based or know-how-based assets.
A practical Turkish due diligence review therefore usually needs to cover at least these layers in substance: registered rights and their status; renewals and annual fees; non-use and cancellation exposure; chain of title; notarization and recordal where applicable; licences and encumbrances; employee and contractor ownership; software and copyright chain of title; and registry verification against TÜRKPATENT and WIPO-facing databases. Even where the transaction is small, those are not luxury checks. They are the difference between buying a usable asset and buying a dispute.
Final thoughts
IP due diligence in Turkey is not a box-ticking exercise. It is a legal audit of exclusivity, ownership, enforceability, and commercial risk. Turkish law gives real value to IP assets, but it also makes formalities matter: trademarks run on opposition windows, renewal cycles, and cancellation exposure; patents and utility models run on terms, annual fees, prosecution history, and inventor-origin questions; designs depend on registration and disclosure timing; and copyright sits in a separate legal universe that can be overlooked far too easily.
The best Turkish IP diligence report is the one that moves past slogans such as “all IP is owned by the company” and asks harder questions. Is the title clean? Are the rights recorded where they need to be? Are the marks actually used? Are the patents still alive? Are there pledges, licences, or founder-era defects? Is the software really assigned? In Turkey, those questions are not pessimistic. They are what serious investors, buyers, and well-run startups ask before they decide what the asset is actually worth.
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