As the mandatory quarantine situation caused by the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak starts to have negative effects on daily life, various regulations are being enacted for judicial and other legal processes.

During this period, the necessity to suspend the terms determined as per the Industrial Property Code ("IP Code"), applied either by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office ("Office") or before the relevant courts as statute of limitations for filing lawsuits, has been fulfilled with the enactment of The Law on Amendment of Certain Laws No. 7226 ("Law"), which entered into force upon publication in the Official Gazette dated 26 March after its adoption by the Turkish Parliament on March 25, 2020.

The wording of the temporary Article 1, which states that "Any and all terms in scope of the acquisition, use or extinction of a right, including the terms for filing lawsuits, enforcement proceedings, applications, objections, notices, notifications, submission periods, prescription periods and statutory limitations, along with the mandatory administrative application terms, terms specified under the Administrative Procedure Code no. 2577 and dated 6.1.1982, terms specified under the Criminal Procedure Code no. 5271 and dated 4.12.2004, terms specified under the Civil Procedure Code no. 6100 and dated 12.1.2011,  terms specified in other laws containing procedural provisions, terms determined by the judges and terms for mediation and conciliation facilities have have been suspended retrospectively from 13 March 2020 (inclusive), until 30 April 2020 (inclusive)", allows all administrative terms and terms relating to the acquisition, use or extinction of right to be suspended along with judicial terms.

Therefore, it has been understood that the Law not only applies to the terms relating to legal actions brought before courts for the protection of intellectual and industrial property rights, but also to the deadlines applicable for other actions, such as the registration of industrial property rights and the oppositions filed before the Office.

Indeed, this understanding that the Law also applies to the terms regulated by the IP Code No. 6769 has been confirmed by the Office through their announcement dated March 27, 2020 and titled "The Suspension of Deadlines to Prevent Loss of Rights". 

As per the above mentioned provision, the deadlines for the procedures carried out before the Office, as well as the deadlines for the cancellation actions to be filed against the decisions of the Office have all been suspended as of March 13, 2020 (inclusive of this date). The Law grants the right to retroactively file procedures that have not been executed if the deadline falls between March 13, 2020 and April 30, 2020 (including these dates).

Within the scope of the regulation in the Law, the terms relating to intellectual and industrial rights will be preserved as they were on 13.03.2020 and will continue on 01.05.2020 from where it left off.

On the other hand, the Law states that if there are 15 or less days for the expiry of a term as of May 1, 2020, that term will be deemed extended for further 15 days starting from the day following the end of the suspension period. If there are more than 15 days for the expiry of the term, the remaining period will be taken into account instead.

While the terms will be recalculated from May 1, 2020 by taking into consideration how they were preserved on March 13, 2020, it is possible to say that even the shortest remaining time is extended until at least May 15, 2020.

However, in case of continuation of the reasons causing the suspension, the President is entitled to extend the suspension period once again for a maximum of 6 months.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.