IP SEARCH & CLEARANCE
In the registration process of industrial property rights, professional pre-application research constitutes the cornerstone of any successful protection strategy. In trademark applications, the absolute grounds for refusal set forth in Article 5 of Industrial Property Code No. 6769 (the "IPC"), together with the relative grounds for refusal regulated under Article 6 of the same Code, may result in the rejection of the application or in third-party oppositions following its publication in the Official Trademark Bulletin. For this reason, Budak Intellectual Property conducts a comprehensive preliminary search (clearance search) for each trademark our clients intend to register; we systematically screen prior identical or confusingly similar trademark applications and registrations, trade names, domain names, geographical indications and sector-specific uses, thereby assessing the risk of refusal or opposition before the application is filed. This proactive approach not only prevents the unnecessary expenditure of official fees but also enables our clients to build a reputable, legally sustainable and strong brand identity from the outset.
In patent and utility model applications, prior search work is critical for assessing, at an early stage, whether the invention satisfies the criteria of novelty and inventive step. Through the state-of-the-art reviews and patentability (prior art) searches we conduct, our clients gain a reliable preliminary insight into the registrability of their inventions well before the official search report is issued by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (TÜRKPATENT). The findings obtained from this preliminary research play a directly strategic role in drafting the patent specification (description, claims, abstract and drawings); they enable the claims to be structured in a manner that clearly distinguishes the invention from existing prior art, allow the scope of protection to be optimised so as to faithfully reflect the actual technical contribution, and provide a robust line of defence against potential objections raised during the substantive examination phase.
The scope of our research services is not limited to registrability analysis; it also encompasses Freedom-to-Operate (FTO) analyses, which assess whether the commercialisation of a product or technology may infringe the industrial property rights of third parties. Particularly in the commercialisation of R&D-intensive products, the launch of new products into domestic or international markets, licensing and assignment transactions, and due diligence procedures conducted prior to mergers and acquisitions, FTO analysis serves as a decisive risk-management tool against potential infringement claims and costly disputes. At Budak Intellectual Property, we conduct multilingual and multi-jurisdictional searches across the records of TÜRKPATENT as well as international databases including EPO (Espacenet), WIPO (PatentScope), USPTO, EUIPO and TMview; we then combine the results with sound legal analysis to deliver clear, concise and actionable reports to our clients. Our objective is to transform an industrial property right into not merely a registered title, but a commercially defensible asset that creates real value in the marketplace.
All of these research activities are carried out not as a mere data presentation, but as the foundation upon which a tailored industrial property strategy is developed for each client. During the evaluation of the search reports and in the course of preliminary consultations, the client's commercial objectives, sector of activity, target markets and existing IP portfolio are addressed holistically; on this basis, a bespoke registration strategy is formulated for every application. On the trademark side, this strategy ranges from determining the appropriate Nice classes and sub-classes for protection, to the structuring of trademark families, planning international registration through the Madrid Protocol, and, where appropriate, securing a letter of consent from prior right holders pursuant to Article 5/3 of the IPC. On the patent side, our patent strategy includes determining whether the invention should be protected through a national application, a utility model, a PCT application or a direct EPO filing; optimising the claim hierarchy (independent and dependent claims); pursuing divisional applications or conversion procedures where necessary; making strategic use of priority rights; and positioning the patent portfolio as both a defensive shield and a negotiation asset against competing technologies. In this way, the research process transcends an isolated technical exercise and evolves into a comprehensive intellectual property roadmap that serves the long-term commercial and legal interests of our clients.