Turkpatent cancelled a registration fee notice because of a power-of-attorney deficiency, then disowned its replacement after the applicant had complied. An Ankara IP court rejected the resulting attempt to apply the original deadline, placing legal certainty and reliance at the centre of the dispute. Yasemin Aktas reports

Turkpatent cancelled its initial registration fee notice because it had been served despite a deficiency in the representative’s power of attorney. It issued a replacement, refunded the earlier payment and received a second payment within the period running from service of the new notice. The office subsequently disowned the replacement as having been sent in error and removed the application.

The Ankara First Civil Court of Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights rejected that reversal in a judgment dated 16 July 2026. It annulled the decision of the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office’s Re-examination and Evaluation Board (YİDK) that had upheld removal of the application.

Cancellation of the first notice and reliance on its replacement

The initial registration fee notice was served on 16 January 2023. The judgment records that payment was made later than the 16 March deadline calculated by reference to that notice.

On 20 March, Turkpatent cancelled the initial notice on the basis that it had been served despite a deficiency in the power of attorney supporting the recorded representation. It issued a replacement notice, formally served on 28 March. The earlier payment was refunded. On 28 April, the applicant paid the fee again in full, within two months of service of the replacement.

On 8 May, Turkpatent stated that the second notice had been sent inadvertently and deemed the application lapsed. YİDK measured the second payment against the original notice, concluded that it fell outside the original two-month period and treated it as having no effect.

The office had to account for its intervening acts

Article 22 of Industrial Property Code No 6769, read with Article 12 of its implementing regulation, governs completion of registration and payment of the fee. The court acknowledged the two-month payment requirement. The dispute concerned which official notification could govern the applicant’s obligations after Turkpatent had cancelled the original notice, issued a replacement and received payment within the period running from its service.

The court held that applying the payment requirement also demanded clarity and reliability in administration, reflecting the rule-of-law principle in Article 2 of the Constitution. Turkpatent’s own intervening acts had to be given their legal effect.

Service of the second notice created a legitimate expectation that the office had corrected its earlier error and that a fresh two-month period had begun on 28 March. The applicant relied on that official direction and completed payment on 28 April.

The court held that the formally served notice retained legal effect until annulled, even if it had been issued defectively. When the applicant paid, it was acting on an official notice that the office had not yet disowned. The later claim of error could not justify removing the application in disregard of that reliance.

The reasoning placed responsibility for administrative records and personnel mistakes on the authority. In these circumstances, the office could not invoke its own record-keeping deficiencies, delays in recording representation changes or inadvertent acts to enforce a time limit extinguishing the applicant’s rights. The court treated the second notice as restarting the payment period and found the April payment timely.

Both the original and supplementary expert reports had supported Turkpatent’s position. The judge rejected their legal conclusion after examining the powers of attorney, chronology and office records. Measuring the payment solely against the January notice failed to account for its cancellation and the legal consequences of the replacement.

Why the claim of error did not defeat reliance

Calling a notice an administrative mistake explains why the office wishes to change its position. It does not, by itself, determine what happens to an applicant who has already followed that notice. The court required those consequences to be assessed against legal certainty and good-faith reliance.

Turkpatent sought to enforce a deadline calculated from a notice it had cancelled, after directing the applicant to proceed under a replacement. The resulting risk was concrete: conduct consistent with the office’s current instructions was subsequently treated as insufficient to preserve the application.

For anyone conducting trade mark proceedings before Turkpatent, the case illustrates the risk of an earlier decision or notice being revised on grounds of administrative error after an applicant has already acted on it. The judgment offers a basis for challenging comparable reversals, with the office’s intervening instructions and the applicant’s reliance placed at the centre of the analysis.

Abion bore all the costs of this litigation because, in our assessment, the office’s contradictory handling of the application was arbitrary and the resulting injustice was clear. Our aim was to protect the client’s rights and demonstrate that judicial review can secure clarity and accountability in trademark proceedings in Türkiye.

What applicants should preserve when the office changes its position

Every version of a decision or notice should be retained, alongside proof of service, payment receipts and relevant representation and refund correspondence. The sequence can establish what the office instructed, when the applicant complied and whether the office changed its position only afterwards.

The ruling rests on a formally served replacement notice followed by payment within the period the court held it created. It provides no basis for assuming that every later communication restarts a deadline. The operative order annulled YİDK’s decision; it did not itself order registration. The judgment was issued at first instance with a right of appeal.

Official notices must carry legal consequences for the authority that issues them. An applicant who has complied with a formally served instruction should not lose its application merely because the office later labels that instruction an error.

Yasemin Aktas is Country Manager and Partner of Abion in Istanbul, Turkey and a member of the MARQUES Dispute Resolution Team. Abion acted for the successful party in this case.