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CategoryTrademark
Published11 August 2026
Authors
Uğurcan TekinPartner
Alican TekinPartner

Opposing a Trademark Application: The Two-Month Window and the Use Defence

Most oppositions that fail in Türkiye do not fail on the merits of similarity. They fail because something procedural was left until the second month, or because a ground that would have carried the file was added after the window had shut. The rules that produce those outcomes are short, they are in Articles 18 to 21 of the Industrial Property Code No. 6769, and they reward a reading before the first opposition rather than after the first loss.

Three Things Must Happen Within Two Months, Not One

Article 18(1) provides that oppositions asserting that a mark should not be registered under Article 5 or Article 6 are filed within two months of publication of the application. Article 18(2) then adds two requirements that practitioners routinely treat as administrative and that the statute treats as constitutive. The opposition must be in writing and reasoned, and if the grounds are not submitted within that same two-month period the opposition is deemed not to have been filed. The fee must be paid within the opposition period and the payment information submitted to the Office within that same period.

The consequence in each case is not rejection but non-existence. An opposition filed on the last day with grounds to follow, or with a payment made on the day but evidenced a week later, is not a weak opposition — it is not an opposition. There is no cure and no restitution, because there is nothing to restore.

The Bulletin publication starts a two-month clock that governs three separate obligations at once.

Observations Are Not Oppositions

Article 17 permits any person to submit written and reasoned observations that a mark cannot be registered under the absolute grounds — with the express exception of Article 5(1)(ç), the ground concerning identity or indistinguishable similarity with an earlier mark. Observations may be submitted at any time up to registration, they carry no fee, and the Office may reject the application wholly or partly if it finds them well founded.

The trade-off is stated in the provision itself: the person submitting observations does not become a party to the proceedings. There is no right to be heard on the applicant's response, no right of appeal against the outcome, and no procedural standing at all. Observations are useful where an absolute ground is obvious and the observer has no interest in the file beyond keeping the register clean. They are not a substitute for opposition where the objective is to protect a portfolio.

The Grounds Set Is Fixed at the Window's Close

Article 20(2) provides that an appeal against a decision of the Office is filed within two months of notification, in writing and with reasons, and then states the rule that governs the whole procedure: after the appeal period, the grounds of appeal may not be changed and new grounds may not be added. Read together with Article 18(2), the effect is that the case an opponent will run through to the Board — and, in substance, to the Ankara court — is the case it wrote in the first two months.

This has a drafting consequence. Where several grounds are available under Article 6 — likelihood of confusion under Article 6(1), an unregistered sign used in trade under Article 6(3), reputation under Article 6(4) or Article 6(5), a prior personal name, trade name, copyright or other intellectual property right under Article 6(6), bad faith under Article 6(9) — each should be pleaded in the opposition even where one appears clearly stronger than the others. A ground dropped for tidiness is a ground surrendered permanently.

The Use Defence Under Article 19(2)

Article 19(2) allows the applicant to require the opponent to prove use of the mark relied on, provided that mark had been registered in Türkiye for at least five years at the application or priority date of the opposed application. Three limits on the mechanism decide most disputes about it.

First, it is available only against oppositions grounded on Article 6(1) — likelihood of confusion. An opposition based on reputation under Article 6(5), on an unregistered sign under Article 6(3) or on bad faith under Article 6(9) is not exposed to a use request, and an opponent whose registered mark is vulnerable on use should consider whether the file genuinely rests on Article 6(1) alone.

Second, the request is made by the applicant in its observations in response to the opposition, within the one-month response period, and the opponent then has one month from notification of the request to file its evidence. The Office's practice, set out in its guidance on proof of use, is that no extension is granted for that evidential period and that evidence filed late is not taken into account.

Third, the request cannot be raised for the first time on appeal to the Board. An applicant who does not ask for proof of use at first instance has waived it for the file.

“Genuine use is measured against the market, not against the file. Invoices to a single related company, a website that has never taken an order, and a stock of unsold packaging are, in combination, a record of intention rather than of use.”

The relevant period is the five years preceding the application or priority date of the opposed application. Where use is proved for only part of the goods and services, the opposition proceeds only in respect of the proved part; where it is not proved at all, the opposition is disregarded to that extent and, absent another ground, rejected. The substantive test — real commercial use directed at the market, in a scale appropriate to the sector, with the sign functioning as a mark — is drawn from established European case law and applied without a fixed quantitative threshold.

What This Means for a Watching Programme

The two-month window is measured from publication, not from the date the proprietor learns of the application. A watching service that reports monthly delivers, on average, a file with five weeks remaining; one that reports weekly delivers seven. The difference is not administrative comfort. It is the difference between an opposition drafted with all available grounds pleaded and evidence of reputation assembled, and one filed on the last day with the grounds that could be written that afternoon.

The second consequence runs the other way. A proprietor whose own portfolio contains marks registered for more than five years and used narrowly should assume that every opposition it files under Article 6(1) will draw a proof-of-use request, and should assemble the use file before filing rather than in the month it is given to produce it.

Sources

Related practice areaIndustrial Property Law→

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