Non-Use Cancellation of a Trademark in Turkey: Administrative Revocation at TÜRKPATENT

Short answer: since 10 January 2024, a Turkish trademark that has not been put to genuine use in Türkiye for an uninterrupted period of five years is cancelled by TÜRKPATENT, not by the courts. Article 26 of Industrial Property Law No. 6769 gives the Office exclusive competence, and provisional Article 4 delayed that transfer by seven years from the entry into force of the Law, which expired on that date. The official fee for a revocation request in the 2026 tariff is TRY 35,320. The owner is given one month to respond, extendable once by a further month on a justified request, and a decision to revoke takes effect immediately, even while a court challenge is pending.

This is the most significant procedural change in Turkish trademark law since the Law itself, and a great deal of English language material still describes the old system. If a source tells you to file a non-use cancellation action in the Ankara intellectual property court, it is describing the position before 10 January 2024.

What Changed on 10 January 2024

Law No. 6769 entered into force on 10 January 2017. Article 26 allocated competence over revocation to TÜRKPATENT, but provisional Article 4 postponed that allocation for seven years, leaving the courts in charge in the meantime. When the seven years expired the postponement simply ended, and with it the courts' jurisdiction over the ground.

The disappearance of the counterclaim is the part that most often surprises foreign counsel. A defendant sued for infringement in Türkiye can no longer answer, in the same proceeding, that the claimant's mark has not been used for five years. The non-use challenge has to be taken to TÜRKPATENT separately, which changes both the sequencing and the cost of defending an infringement claim.

The Five Year Rule

The ground is straightforward to state and hard to satisfy. A registered mark may be revoked if, without proper justification, it has not been put to genuine use in Türkiye in connection with the registered goods or services for an uninterrupted period of five years, or if such use has been suspended for an uninterrupted period of five years.

• The five years run from registration, or from the last genuine use, whichever produces an uninterrupted five year gap.
• Use must be in Türkiye. Sales elsewhere, a global website with no Turkish trade, and an international reputation do not satisfy the requirement, although export of goods bearing the mark from Türkiye counts.
• Use must be genuine, meaning real commercial exploitation to create or maintain a market, not token use engineered to defeat a challenge.
• Use with the mark in a form differing in elements that do not alter its distinctive character still counts, as does use by a licensee with the owner's consent.
• Revocation may be partial. If you use the mark for two items in a class of thirty, expect to keep the two.

Article 26 also covers grounds beyond non-use: where the mark has become the common name in trade for the goods it is registered for as a result of the owner's acts or inaction, where use by or with the consent of the owner misleads the public as to nature, quality or geographical origin, and where a guarantee or collective mark is used contrary to its technical regulation. Non-use is by a wide margin the ground that is actually litigated.

Who Can File, and What It Costs

A revocation request may be filed by interested parties. In practice the requester is almost always someone whose own application has been blocked by the mark, or who has been sent a cease and desist letter by its owner. There is no requirement to hold a registration of your own.

That comparison is deliberate. A revocation request costs roughly thirty times an opposition. It is a deliberate, funded strategic step, not a routine housekeeping filing, and it is worth checking first whether the same commercial result can be achieved by opposing, by narrowing your own specification, or by negotiating. The tariff is revised every January, so quote the year with the figure.

Procedure and Timeline

1. The request is filed with TÜRKPATENT, identifying the registration, the goods and services attacked, and the ground, with the fee paid.
2. The Office notifies the owner, who has one month to respond and to file evidence of use. A duly justified request can obtain one further month.
3. The Office examines the evidence and decides. There is no expert panel and no hearing; the decision is made on the documents.
4. A decision to revoke takes effect immediately, and remains enforceable even if the owner goes to court. There is no automatic suspensive effect, which is a meaningful divergence from EU practice and a real risk for owners.
5. Appeal to the Re-examination and Evaluation Board within two months of notification.
6. Annulment action against the Board's decision before the Ankara Civil Court for Intellectual and Industrial Rights, within two months of notification.

As a rule the revocation takes effect from the date the request was filed. Where the conditions for revocation arose earlier and a party asks for it, an earlier effective date can be fixed, which matters when the revocation is being used to clear the ground for a damages claim or to answer one.

The Evidence: What Genuine Use Looks Like

Everything turns on the file the owner puts in during that one month. Turkish practice looks for evidence that is dated, commercial, and tied to Türkiye and to the specific goods.

The same standard governs the proof of use demand in opposition proceedings, which we cover in our guide to proof of use and in our guide to trademark opposition in Turkey. This decision, in which a company defeated a cancellation claim by documenting years of perfume sales, is the practical illustration of what a sufficient file looks like, and this one shows partial revocation in operation.

Front-Load Your Evidence

Turkish administrative revocation runs on a closed record. Evidence that was not before the Office cannot be introduced later to repair the case, so the one month reply is not a preliminary skirmish, it is the whole defence. Owners who treat it as a holding response and plan to produce the real file on appeal lose marks that they were in fact using.

For portfolio owners this argues for a standing use file rather than a scramble: for each mark and each core class, a folder holding a handful of dated invoices per year, one dated advertising item per year, and current packaging artwork with a date. Assembling that once takes an afternoon per brand. Assembling it retrospectively, under a one month deadline, for a product line that changed hands two reorganisations ago, is how registrations are lost.

Using Revocation Offensively

Revocation is the standard answer to two situations foreign brand owners run into constantly.

• A blocking registration in the way of your own filing. Where the blocking mark is old and dormant, a revocation request removes the obstacle at its root rather than arguing about similarity. The full set of options is set out in our guide on recovering a trademark someone else registered in Türkiye.
• A cease and desist letter from a mark you have never seen in the market. Since the non-use counterclaim is no longer available in the infringement action itself, the response has to be filed at TÜRKPATENT, and the sooner the better, because the timing of the request affects the effective date of any revocation.

Revocation is not invalidation. Invalidation says the mark should never have been registered and, if granted, removes it retroactively; revocation says the mark was validly registered but has not been used, and it operates from the request date forward. They are different actions, before different bodies, on different grounds, and choosing the wrong one costs the fee and the time.

Renewal Does Not Cure Non-Use

A point worth stating plainly, because it comes up often: paying the renewal fee every ten years keeps the registration alive administratively, and does nothing at all about the five year use requirement. A mark renewed three times and used none of those times is revocable on any working day. Renewal deadlines and fees are covered in our guide to trademark renewal in Turkey, and the two calendars, renewal and use, need to be kept separately.

Working With Elçi Patent

Elçi Patent is run by Hakan Elçi, a trademark attorney entered on the TÜRKPATENT register under number 2732. We file revocation requests, defend them, build and audit use evidence files for foreign portfolios, appeal to the Re-examination and Evaluation Board, and work with Turkish litigation counsel where a matter reaches the Ankara courts. If you are instructing as a firm rather than as the brand owner, see our page for law firms.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who decides non-use cancellation of trademarks in Turkey?

TÜRKPATENT. Since 10 January 2024, Article 26 of Industrial Property Law No. 6769 gives the Office exclusive competence over revocation, including revocation for non-use. Before that date the civil courts for intellectual and industrial rights decided these claims, because provisional Article 4 had postponed the transfer for seven years.

How long must a trademark be unused before it can be cancelled in Turkey?

Five years. The mark must not have been put to genuine use in Türkiye for the registered goods or services for an uninterrupted period of five years, without proper justification, or use must have been suspended for an uninterrupted period of five years.

How much does a non-use cancellation request cost at TÜRKPATENT?

The official fee in the 2026 tariff is TRY 35,320, plus the attorney's professional fee. By way of comparison, an opposition against publication costs TRY 1,150. TÜRKPATENT revises the tariff every January.

How long does the trademark owner have to respond?

One month from notification of the request, extendable once by a further month on a duly justified request. Because the procedure runs on a closed record, evidence not filed within that period generally cannot be introduced later.

What evidence proves genuine use of a trademark in Turkey?

Dated commercial evidence tied to Türkiye and to the specific goods or services: invoices to Turkish customers, customs and export records, dated advertising and media invoices, packaging and catalogues bearing printing dates, marketplace listings with sales data, and licence or distribution agreements supported by performance evidence.

Can I raise non-use as a defence in an infringement case in Turkey?

Not as a counterclaim in the same proceeding. Since competence moved to TÜRKPATENT, a defendant who wants to attack the claimant's mark on the non-use ground must file a separate revocation request with the Office. This changes the sequencing of any infringement defence and should be planned early.

From what date does a revocation decision take effect?

As a rule from the date the request was filed with TÜRKPATENT. Where the conditions for revocation arose at an earlier date and a party asks for it, the decision can be given effect from that earlier date, which matters when the revocation is being used in connection with a damages claim.

Does the mark stay valid while the owner challenges the decision in court?

No. A revocation decision is immediately effective and enforceable even while a court challenge is pending. Türkiye does not provide the automatic suspensive effect familiar from several EU jurisdictions, which is why the administrative stage has to be treated as the decisive one.

What is the difference between revocation and invalidation in Turkey?

Invalidation says the registration should never have been granted and, when successful, removes it retroactively; it is decided by the courts. Revocation says the registration was validly granted but has lapsed in substance, for example through five years of non-use, and it is decided by TÜRKPATENT with effect from the request date forward.