Counterfeit Goods in Turkey: Civil and Criminal Trademark Enforcement for Foreign Brands

A foreign brand owner can pursue civil remedies and a criminal complaint against counterfeit trading in Turkey, but the two routes have different requirements and purposes. Articles 29 and 30 of Industrial Property Code No. 6769 define the relevant infringement and offences. Articles 149–151 regulate civil relief and compensation, while Article 159 governs interim measures. A complaint is not an automatic seizure order, and a criminal conviction does not by itself determine every item of commercial loss.

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This guide concerns goods or services unlawfully bearing another person’s trademark. It distinguishes counterfeit production from genuine parallel imports, explains the Turkish-registration requirement for the Article 30 offences and identifies the evidence needed by an overseas owner. It does not describe every unauthorised distributor as a counterfeiter or promise that a particular complaint will produce an immediate raid.

Establish the Turkish trademark and the claimant’s authority

Obtain the current Turkish registration, its owner, the registered sign, the goods and services and the renewal history. Article 30(5) expressly requires Turkish registration before a penalty can be imposed for the offences in that article. A foreign certificate should not be presented as automatically satisfying this condition. Identify the protection actually effective in Turkey and the relevant registration record.

The person instructing enforcement must also have the appropriate legal position. A brand’s parent company, Turkish subsidiary, distributor and licensee are separate persons. The registered owner and any person relying on a licence should establish the authority relevant to the proposed procedure rather than assume that commercial responsibility for Turkey is enough.

Article 158 supplies specific rules for a licensee’s civil actions. Our licensee enforcement guide explains exclusivity, contractual restrictions and notification requirements. The ability to bring a civil claim under that provision should not be used as an unexplained substitute for examining authority to make the particular criminal complaint.

Counterfeit goods are not the same as genuine parallel imports

Article 29(1)(b) concerns imitation of the trademark or an indistinguishably similar sign without the owner’s permission. Paragraph 1(c) addresses specified dealings in products bearing a copied mark where the person knows or ought to know of the imitation. Those elements require examination of the goods, sign and defendant’s activity, not merely the absence of an official distributor invoice.

Article 152 addresses exhaustion where goods have been marketed by the right holder or with permission. The genuine-goods and parallel-import guide explains that separate analysis. A brand owner should establish why the stock is counterfeit or otherwise outside the relevant protection limit instead of relying only on its exclusive distribution arrangement.

Describe the suspected defect precisely: an unauthorised sign, counterfeit packaging, an unapproved production batch or another identified circumstance. A product being inexpensive, sold online or supplied by an unfamiliar trader does not alone prove counterfeiting. Preserve the factual basis for the allegation and distinguish what has been verified from what still requires technical examination.

Article 30 contains distinct criminal offences

Article 30(1) of Code No. 6769 covers the listed production, service, sale, import, export and commercial purchasing, possession, transport or storage acts that infringe another person’s trademark through copying or confusion. Its statutory sanction is one to three years’ imprisonment and a judicial fine of up to twenty thousand days. The financial amount is not simply twenty thousand Turkish lira; a day-based fine must not be misreported as a fixed currency figure.

Article 30(2) separately penalises unauthorised removal from goods or packaging of the indication that trademark protection exists, with one to three years’ imprisonment and a judicial fine of up to five thousand days. Paragraph 3 concerns unauthorised disposition over another person’s trademark through assignment, licensing or pledging, with two to four years’ imprisonment and a judicial fine of up to five thousand days.

These are statutory ranges and categories, not a prediction of the sentence in a particular case. The applicable criminal-law requirements, evidence and individual responsibility must be established. A civil infringement allegation should not be treated as automatically proving all elements of a criminal offence.

Article 30(4) provides for the relevant security measures where the offences are committed within the activities of a legal person. It should not be paraphrased as imprisonment of the company itself. Identify the individuals’ conduct and the corporate activity separately, without assuming that every director or employee is criminally responsible merely because of a title.

The criminal route is complaint-dependent

Article 30(6) makes investigation and prosecution dependent on a complaint. The owner should preserve when it learned of the relevant acts and persons and obtain an assessment of the applicable complaint and limitation rules promptly. An informal report to a marketplace, a demand letter and a properly authorised criminal complaint are different steps.

The complaint should identify the trademark, suspected acts, available evidence and the persons or locations actually supported by that evidence. Where the responsible individual is not yet known, explain that limitation rather than invent a name or attribute every transaction to the registered company director. Supply-chain investigation and legal responsibility require reliable identification.

Do not promise the commercial team that a complaint will lead to a search at a particular time or guarantee seizure of all goods. Any search, seizure and further investigative action must follow the applicable procedure and the competent authority’s decision. A private investigator or brand representative does not acquire police powers from ownership of the trademark.

Preserve test purchases and digital evidence lawfully

A documented purchase can connect an advertised product to an actual seller, payment and delivered item. Preserve the original listing, order confirmation, payment record, shipping information, invoice and packaging. Record who received and handled the sample and retain the identifiers linking it to the transaction. These are practical evidence measures, not a statutory guarantee that one purchase proves every sale alleged.

For online offers, capture the relevant page content, address, date and seller information through lawful methods. A screenshot without the surrounding context may not establish which trader controlled the account or whether the displayed product was actually supplied. Preserve original files and explain any later annotations or translations rather than altering the source material.

Keep the authenticity assessment separate from the purchase record. The person examining the goods should explain the comparison, relevant manufacturing or security features and the basis for any conclusion. A statement that the product is not in the owner’s sales database may require further explanation; an absence of a record is not automatically proof of every criminal element.

Do not access private accounts, impersonate an authorised official, falsify invoices or obtain confidential records through unlawful entry. Evidence preservation should support a legitimate enforcement process, not create a new dispute about how the material was acquired.

Civil relief can stop conduct and address its consequences

Article 149 permits requests for determination of infringement, prevention of threatened infringement, cessation, removal and compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary harm. It also addresses seizure of infringing goods and means used exclusively in their production without obstructing production of unrelated goods. The requested relief should identify the acts and products rather than seek an unexplained shutdown of every business activity.

The owner can request title to specified seized goods or equipment under Article 149(1)(e). Paragraph 2 requires their value to be deducted from compensation and requires the owner to pay any excess over the compensation awarded. This is not a statutory entitlement to receive both the full damages figure and the seized assets without accounting for their value.

Article 149 also allows measures such as alteration, removal of marks and destruction where unavoidable to prevent infringement. Destruction is therefore not automatically the only available result for every item. The statutory purpose and the particular goods must guide the request. Publication of a final decision is separately available where the required reason or interest exists, with the form and scope determined by the court.

Interim measures are separate from the final judgment

Article 159 allows a person entitled to sue to request interim relief upon proving infringing use in Turkey or serious and effective preparations for it, in order to preserve the effectiveness of the judgment. The provision identifies prevention or cessation, seizure and safekeeping of relevant goods or means, and security-related measures. The Civil Procedure Code applies where the industrial-property statute does not supply a rule.

A request should explain the immediate risk and the connection between the proposed measure and the right asserted. Evidence of a particular shipment or identified stock is different from a general suspicion about an entire industry. The order actually made must be read before anyone describes goods as legally seized or sales as prohibited.

Article 159 includes goods located in customs and free-zone settings, but this does not make every customs administrative procedure identical to a civil injunction. A border notification requires review of its own legal basis, documents and deadlines. This guide does not invent one universal response period for all customs holds.

Damages require a supported calculation

Articles 150 and 151 separate actual loss from lost profit. For lost profit, Article 151 provides alternative methods chosen by the injured right holder: the income it would have obtained without the infringing competition, the infringer’s net profit, or the fee that lawful licensing would have required. Total sales turnover is not automatically the recoverable amount under the net-profit method.

Article 150(2) addresses additional damage to the right’s reputation from the specified poor production, use or inappropriate marketing. The evidence should explain the reputational harm rather than merely repeat that counterfeit goods are undesirable. Financial, technical and market evidence answer different parts of the claim.

Under Article 150(3), the owner can seek a court order for relevant use documents to preserve evidence before a damages action or to determine loss in an existing action. This is a court-controlled route, not permission to demand unrestricted access to the defendant’s entire business archive. The documents sought should be tied to the issue they are intended to prove.

An older registration can also encounter the statutory proof-of-use defence in an infringement action. The trademark use guide explains the action-date reference and evidence requirements. Prepare the owner’s authorised use records as well as evidence of the suspected counterfeit trading.

Cooperation, settlement and the limits of non-punishment

Article 30(7) provides a specific non-punishment rule for a person offering or selling goods produced by copying another person’s trademark who identifies the source and thereby enables identification of the producers and seizure of the produced goods. Giving any supplier name is not necessarily enough; the statutory conditions and resulting assistance must be assessed. The paragraph should not be presented as general immunity for every participant.

A commercial settlement should identify the goods, acts, compensation, future restrictions and procedural steps actually agreed. Civil releases and the consequences of a criminal complaint are not interchangeable. Do not promise that a payment automatically erases public records, guarantees termination of every proceeding or binds persons who are not parties to the agreement.

The final enforcement file should connect the Turkish right, authorised claimant, actual products, lawful evidence and remedy sought. That structure allows a foreign owner to act against documented counterfeiting while avoiding unsupported accusations against genuine traders or promises about outcomes that only the competent authorities can determine.

Official legal sources

Primary provisions: Industrial Property Code No. 6769, Articles 29–30, 149–152 and 158–159. The TÜRKPATENT legislation directory links official legislation. This English explanation is not an official translation, an accusation against an identified trader or a prediction of a criminal sentence.

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