In short
An appearance that stands open to everyone at a fair is a disclosure to the public, and if it is for the first time in Turkey, unregistered protection is discussed. The question of what happens if a design disclosed at a fair is copied is read from the date of that presentation and from the copy being shown. Unregistered protection is three years from the first presentation in Turkey. The same presentation also carries a twelve-month exception for novelty in a later registration. The fair's own closing day does not stand in for these periods. A new fair day is not added to this text.
A drawing explained behind the stand on a condition of confidentiality may not count as disclosure to the public. A product standing on a shelf open to everyone does count. Counting does not mean the copy was proved of itself. The date comes out of the catalogue, the entry record, or a photograph.
Three years and twelve months
Unregistered protection is against a copy, and it is three years. The twelve months do not extend those three years. The twelve months are so that the designer's, or the successor's, own presentation does not destroy novelty and individual character in the period before the application or the priority date. The two periods are not melted in the same sentence. The last day on the fair poster stands in for neither the three years nor the twelve months.
The five years of a registered design, and its renewal, are not an extension of the unregistered three years at the fair. Five years is another registry calculation. This text does not add a new year of protection to that calculation. The three years, the twelve months and the five years written in the file stay at their own doors. If the doors are mixed, the claim of a copy is built on the wrong period.
The copy is shown separately
In the unregistered case, stopping it depends on showing that an appearance which is the same, or so similar that it cannot be distinguished in the overall impression, was copied. Saying that it was copied depends on the fair photograph containing a date. If the photograph has no date, it cannot be established who showed it first. If the other side produced the appearance independently at the same fair, and it was not possible by a reasonable route for them to know your design, it is not counted as a copy.
A sentence that it looks alike does not stand in for the link of copying. A form that the technical function of the product makes necessary can narrow the freedom separately. That narrowing does not of itself make the fair record void. The ruling is not reached before the appearance and the date are read side by side. A stand number does not prove the appearance itself. The appearance speaks with the frame taken at that stand.
Which record looks where
The condition of unregistered protection is separate, the novelty test is separate, the registration application is separate, infringement after registration is separate, and the calculation of the registered term is separate. The name of the fair does not melt these five questions in a single petition.
The records are as follows. Unregistered protection is in the unregistered design record, the novelty test in novelty in a design, and the opening of the application in registration of an industrial design. The comparison after registration is in design infringement, and where the five years stand is in the design term of protection record. The three years remain in this text as unregistered protection.
How the fair record is read
The name of the fair, the hall, the date of the presentation and the product that was visible are placed side by side. A new fair day, or an extra year of protection, is not written. The three years and the twelve months are not read as the same period. The address of the Çankaya office does not change the authority of the design registry or the competent court. A sentence that it was at a fair without a catalogue does not build a date.
It is not said there is a copy while there is no particular frame. If the petition only says they saw it at the fair, and does not write which appearance stood on which date, it remains incomplete. The decision is not reached without separating the unregistered three years from the registered five years. If the document carries the date of the entry record or of the stand contract, that document speaks. If it does not carry it, the date is not invented.
What the presentation document is for
The document that is read is the fair catalogue, the entry record, the stand contract and the dated photograph. If minutes place the product on the shelf and the fair frame side by side, those minutes speak. An invoice can show the fee for taking part in the fair. The invoice does not of itself prove that the appearance was presented there for the first time. A registry printout shows the later registration. The registry does not stand in for the day of the fair.
The application should write from which presentation the twelve months will be counted. An application that does not write it does not give rise to the exception of itself. If service reports a registry writing, the date is kept. Service does not extend the three years or the twelve months. The decision is read by separating which door Article 57, Article 59 and Article 69 belong to. A decision reached without separating them shows the periods as if they were a single year.
Conclusion
If the fair presentation is for the first time in Turkey, it can start three years of unregistered protection. The twelve months are the novelty exception of the later registration. The five years are not an extension of those three years. A new fair day is not added. The fair's own day does not stand in for the statutory periods. The frame is on the intellectual property law page, and the basis is the Industrial Property Code, Law No. 6769.