Trademark Opposition in Turkey: How to Oppose an Application and How to Defend Your Own

Short answer: in Turkey you have two months from the date the application is published in the Official Trademark Bulletin to file an opposition with the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TÜRKPATENT). The period runs under Article 18 of Industrial Property Law No. 6769, it is not extendable, and it cannot be restored. The official opposition fee in the 2026 tariff is TRY 1,150 per application, and the fee must be paid inside the same two months or the opposition is treated as never filed. If you miss the window, the application will normally register and your remaining route is an invalidation action in court, which is slower and costs many times more.

Opposition is where most Turkish trademark disputes are actually won or lost. It is cheap, it is fast by the standards of any court, and it is the only stage at which a conflicting application can be stopped before it becomes a registered right that a court has to take away. This guide covers both sides of it: how to oppose someone else's application, and what to do when your own application has been opposed.

The Two Month Window, and Why It Is the Whole Game

Every application that survives the examiner's absolute grounds check is published in the Official Trademark Bulletin. Publication starts a two month clock during which any interested party may oppose. Three points about that clock matter more than anything else in this article.

• It runs from the bulletin's publication date, not from the day you found out. Applications are published in numbered bulletin issues, and the date on the issue is the date the period starts. Nobody notifies you.
• It is not extendable. There is no request for more time, no cure for late filing, and no general restoration mechanism to fall back on.
• The fee is part of the filing. An opposition submitted on the last day with the fee paid the next day is not a late opposition, it is not an opposition at all.

The practical consequence is that opposition is a monitoring problem before it is a legal one. A brand owner who does not watch the bulletin has, in effect, no opposition rights, because by the time a conflicting mark appears in the market the window closed months earlier. This is the single most common way foreign companies lose ground in Turkey, and it is the same mechanism described in our guide on what to do when someone else has registered your trademark in Turkey.

Who May File an Opposition

Article 18 allows opposition by "interested parties", which Turkish practice reads broadly. In descending order of how often we see them:

• Owners of earlier Turkish trademark registrations or applications, including Madrid Protocol designations of Türkiye.
• Owners of earlier unregistered marks or other signs used in trade, where the sign was used before the application date and confers a right to prohibit later use. Prior use is a real ground in Turkey, not a theoretical one.
• Owners of well known marks, whether or not they hold a Turkish registration. See our note on well known trademark protection in Turkey.
• Principals whose agent or distributor has filed in its own name without authorisation, which is a distinct ground under Article 6(2).
• Holders of copyright, personal name rights, trade names, design rights and other prior rights where registration of the mark would infringe them.
• Any third party, on absolute grounds, because an opposition may be based on Article 5 as well as Article 6.

You do not need a Turkish registration to oppose. You do need a Turkish trademark attorney if you are not domiciled in Türkiye, because Article 160 makes acts performed personally by an unrepresented foreign party legally non-existent. An opposition filed directly by the foreign brand owner on the last day of the window does not arrive irregularly, it does not arrive at all. That mechanism is set out in full in our guide on when Turkish law requires a trademark attorney.

Grounds: Absolute (Article 5) and Relative (Article 6)

An opposition may invoke either set of grounds, or both at once, and in contested files it usually does. The distinction matters because the two are proved in completely different ways: absolute grounds are argued from the mark and the goods themselves, relative grounds require you to put in evidence about your own rights.

Bad faith deserves a separate word because foreign owners reach for it instinctively and Turkish practice sets a real evidential bar. It is not enough that the applicant probably knew of your brand. You need the pattern: a portfolio of other people's marks, a prior commercial relationship, an approach asking you to buy the mark, or a filing that tracks your own product launches. Our case notes on serial registration of a famous mark and a celebrity name registered as a trademark show what a successful bad faith record looks like.

Likelihood of confusion deserves a second word. It is a legal assessment, not a factual one to be delegated, and Turkish courts have said so directly: see our note on the case where the expert said invalidate and the court said dismiss. A shared word is not automatically a conflict, as this decision on similar names and this one on generic phrases both illustrate. Opposition strategy that ignores this tends to produce expensive, unpersuasive filings.

How an Opposition Is Filed

1. Identify the target precisely. Application number, mark, applicant, bulletin issue and publication date. The publication date is what your deadline is computed from, so record it.
2. Choose your grounds and your earlier rights. Cite each earlier registration by number and each ground by article. Vague oppositions that gesture at "similarity" without pleading the article are weak from the first page.
3. Decide the scope. You may oppose the whole specification or only the goods and services that actually conflict. A narrower, well targeted opposition is often more likely to succeed than a blanket one, and it reduces the incentive for the applicant to fight to the end.
4. File through TÜRKPATENT's electronic system with the reasoned petition and evidence, and pay the official fee inside the two months.
5. Serve nothing yourself. The Office notifies the applicant. Your side of the process is the file.

Evidence at this stage is not a formality. If you are relying on reputation, prior use or bad faith, the opposition petition is where that record has to be built, because everything that follows, including the eventual court review, is largely argued on the file you created here.

What Happens After You File

Timing in practice: an uncontested straightforward opposition can be decided in well under a year. One that goes through a proof of use exchange, an appeal to the Board and then to court can occupy three years or more. That asymmetry is why a negotiated outcome, a consent letter or a coexistence agreement narrowing the specification, is worth exploring in almost every file. It is also why coexistence arguments raised late do not persuade: our note on the coexistence doctrine where the parties had opposed each other's applications is the cautionary version, and the shopping mall case built on thirty years of coexistence is the successful one.

The Proof of Use Counterattack

This is the provision that decides a large share of Turkish oppositions, and the one foreign opponents are least prepared for. Under Article 19(2), if your opposition relies on an earlier mark that had been registered for at least five years at the application or priority date of the opposed mark, the applicant may demand that you prove genuine use of that mark in Türkiye during the five years preceding that date. If you cannot, the opposition is rejected in respect of the goods and services for which use is not proven, and if you prove use for part of the specification only, the opposition is assessed on that part alone.

Read that again from the opponent's chair. A twenty year old registration covering four classes, of which you actually use one, gives you the opposition rights of a one class registration the moment the applicant asks. Read it from the applicant's chair and it is the cheapest defence available: a single request can dispose of an opposition without any argument about similarity.

What counts as genuine use, and what evidence carries weight, is set out in our dedicated guide on proof of use, and the same evidential standard now governs administrative revocation, covered in our guide to non-use cancellation at TÜRKPATENT. The two are the same question asked from opposite ends, and a portfolio that fails one will fail the other. This perfume case shows what a well kept use record achieves.

If Your Application Has Been Opposed

Receiving an opposition is not a refusal, and the instinct to concede or to refile is usually wrong. Work through this order.

1. Check the opponent's earlier mark for age. If it was registered five or more years before your filing or priority date, demand proof of use in your response. This costs you nothing and shifts the entire burden.
2. Test the goods, not just the signs. Similarity is assessed on signs and goods together. Oppositions frequently over claim across the whole specification when the genuine conflict covers two items.
3. Consider a limitation. Voluntarily narrowing your specification to remove the overlap can end the opposition and still leave you with the protection you actually need.
4. Consider a consent letter. Where the earlier mark is identical or indistinguishably similar, a notarised consent from the earlier owner is the recognised route to registration, and negotiating one is often cheaper than winning.
5. Answer within one month. Silence is not neutral. An unanswered opposition is decided on the opponent's file, and a partial refusal you never argued against becomes the scope of your registration.

Outcomes, and the Appeal Route

The Trademarks Department can refuse the application entirely, refuse it for some goods and services and allow the rest, or reject the opposition and let the application proceed. Whichever side loses may appeal to the Re-examination and Evaluation Board (YİDK) within two months of notification, with a separate official fee set in the annual tariff. The Board is the final administrative instance: its decision closes the TÜRKPATENT stage.

After that the route is judicial. An action to annul the Board's decision is brought before the Ankara Civil Court for Intellectual and Industrial Rights within two months of notification, against TÜRKPATENT and, in practice, against the other party as well. This is court litigation, which means a Turkish lawyer, an expert examination, and a timescale measured in years. It is also where forum and party errors become fatal, as our notes on the competent court in invalidity actions and the wrong defendant trap show.

What It Costs

TÜRKPATENT revises its tariff every January, so quote the year with the figure. Attorney fees are separate and freely agreed; ask for the official fee and the professional fee to be itemised, as we set out on our pricing page. The comparison that matters is not the opposition fee against zero, it is the opposition fee against the cost of an invalidation action three years later, which is where the same dispute goes if the two months pass unused.

Watching the Bulletin

Everything above assumes you find out in time. A watch service compares each bulletin issue against your marks and reports conflicts while the window is open. For a portfolio of any size this is not optional, it is the mechanism that makes the opposition right real. Without it, the first signal is usually a competitor's product on the shelf, by which point the mark is registered and the remedies are the slow ones described in our guide on recovering a trademark registered by someone else.

Common Mistakes

• Counting the deadline from the wrong date. It runs from the bulletin publication date, not from the application date and not from the day your watch report arrived.
• Opposing everything. A blanket opposition against a forty item specification invites a proof of use demand that guts your own case.
• Pleading similarity without pleading the article. Grounds have numbers. Use them.
• Holding evidence back for the appeal. Build the record in the opposition. Later stages review a file, they do not restart it.
• Ignoring the five year exposure of your own earlier mark. Before you oppose, ask whether you could prove use of the mark you are relying on.
• Filing personally from abroad. Article 160 makes it a nullity, and the discovery usually comes after the window has closed.

Working With Elçi Patent

Elçi Patent is run by Hakan Elçi, a trademark attorney entered on the TÜRKPATENT register under number 2732. We file and defend oppositions for foreign brand owners and for overseas law firms instructing on behalf of their clients, run bulletin watches, prepare proof of use records, appeal to the Board, and coordinate with Turkish litigation counsel when a file 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

How long do I have to oppose a trademark application in Turkey?

Two months from the date the application is published in the Official Trademark Bulletin, under Article 18 of Industrial Property Law No. 6769. The period is not extendable and there is no restoration mechanism. The official fee must also be paid within those two months, otherwise the opposition is treated as not filed.

How much does a trademark opposition cost in Turkey?

The official opposition fee in the 2026 TÜRKPATENT tariff is TRY 1,150 per application, plus the attorney's professional fee, which is separate and freely agreed. TÜRKPATENT revises the tariff each January. An appeal to the Re-examination and Evaluation Board carries its own official fee.

Can I oppose without owning a Turkish trademark registration?

Yes. Opposition may be based on an earlier unregistered sign used in trade in Türkiye, on a well known mark under Article 6bis of the Paris Convention, on reputation, on copyright or name rights, on an unauthorised filing by your agent or distributor, on bad faith, or on absolute grounds under Article 5, none of which require a Turkish registration.

What happens if I miss the two month opposition period?

The application will normally proceed to registration. Your remaining route is an invalidation action before the specialised intellectual property courts, which is slower and substantially more expensive than opposition, and which is subject to its own limitation rules. Missing the window does not extinguish your rights, but it changes the forum and the cost.

What is a proof of use demand in an opposition?

Under Article 19(2), where the opposition relies on a mark that had been registered for at least five years at the application or priority date of the opposed mark, the applicant may demand evidence of genuine use of that mark in Türkiye during the preceding five years. If use is not proven, the opposition is rejected for the goods and services concerned.

How long does a trademark opposition take in Turkey?

A straightforward opposition is commonly decided by the Trademarks Department within several months to about a year. Files involving a proof of use exchange, an appeal to the Re-examination and Evaluation Board and then a court action against the Board's decision can run for three years or more.

Can I appeal if my opposition is rejected?

Yes. Either side may appeal to the Re-examination and Evaluation Board within two months of notification, with a separate official fee. The Board's decision ends the administrative stage, after which an annulment action may be brought before the Ankara Civil Court for Intellectual and Industrial Rights within two months.

Can a foreign company file an opposition in Turkey itself?

No. Under Article 160 of Law No. 6769, a party with no domicile in Türkiye must act through a trademark or patent attorney entered on the TÜRKPATENT register, and any act performed personally is deemed not to have been performed. An opposition filed directly by an unrepresented foreign owner has no legal existence.

Is a settlement possible once an opposition has been filed?

Yes, and it is common. Typical outcomes are a limitation of the contested specification, a consent letter from the earlier owner, or a coexistence agreement defining how the two marks will be used. Settlement is frequently cheaper than winning, because it avoids the appeal and court stages entirely.