Intellectual property · Legal information

What Happens If Someone Else Registered My Design?

Author · Av. Ayşenur Konar, Avukat

Published ·

In short

If someone else registered my design, the right stays with the designer, and the true right holder may ask the court for a transfer of the usurped registration. The registration is a presumption until the contrary is shown. What brings the presumption down is a dated sketch, a file record, and correspondence. The three years written in the file are kept. A new year is not added.

The register does not change before a petition is filed. A register that does not change is not corrected so that it passes by itself into a court decision either. Bad faith is read from the relationship in the file. A sentence of "I drew it" does not by itself bring down the presumption of the application. The claim is read from publication of the registered design, or from the unregistered design being made available to the public.

Usurpation, and an employee's design

The right holder of a design the employee made as required by the work they are obliged to do in the business, or relying to a large extent on the business's experience, is the employer unless the contract or the nature of the work says otherwise. The employee cannot ask for this registration for themselves in every file. A design outside the work is read separately. If the contract writes this limit, the contract is read. If it does not write it, a limit is not invented. A service invention in patent law, and the employment relationship in a work, are not a copy of usurpation of an appearance. The three headings stand side by side. One does not carry the other's period. The three years are only the frame, written in the file, of the usurpation claim. The rule in favour of the employer does not have a new year written in place of these three years.

Evidence carries a date

The true right holder shows the sketch, the file record, the correspondence, the order, or the fee with a date. If there is no date, a date is not completed. The registration in the applicant's hand is a presumption. The presumption falls with a concrete chain of creation. On a claim of a partial right, a share may be asked. The rate of the share is not in this text. The shareholders' licence is a debate of unanimity. This text does not build a calculation of the share. If the record writes who produced which appearance, that line is kept. If there is no line, the sentence of ownership is not widened. An invoice may show the order. An invoice does not stand in for the registration certificate.

How the registration is opened sits under industrial design registration. The place of a service invention sits under an employee's invention. A work in an employment relationship sits under a work produced in employment.

A sign is another right

Someone else registering a word or a logo as a trademark is not usurpation of the appearance. That separation sits under someone else registered my trademark. If the same product carries both a sign and an appearance, the two rights are read side by side. One does not carry the other's three years. Bad faith does not run the three-year period against the designer. Bad faith is read from the relationship in the file, not from a sentence of similarity. The register shows in whose name it is recorded. The register does not by itself finish who drew it. The place, in the patent file, of the person who made the invention sits under the inventor. That heading does not rewrite the period of usurpation of the appearance.

What the petition should show

The petition should separate whether a transfer, or recognition as the right holder, is asked. If the two claims are melted in the same sentence, the request stays uncertain. The decision should show which appearance was debated. If the appearance is not in the annex, the decision is not shifted onto another product. The application date is read from the register. If there is no date, a publication day is not invented. Service is read from the annotation as to whether it went to the other side. If there is no annotation, service is not assumed. If a document is missing, the name of what is missing is kept. A missing document is not put in place of the three years. If the disclosure to the public is a catalogue, a sale, or a fair record, that record carries a date. While there is no record, the day of disclosure is not completed.

A claim of usurpation should keep, in the same file, the appearance itself and who produced that appearance. If the date of production, the order correspondence, and the payment document do not stand side by side, the sentence of ownership stays half. A sentence that stays half does not have a new year written in place of the three years. The other side's bad faith is read from facts that stand in the file, such as a shared customer, the order changing hands, or an explanation in the registration papers. While there are no facts, bad faith is not assumed. Bad faith that is not assumed is not treated as having stopped the period by itself. The court reads the transfer and recognition as the right holder as separate claims. If the claim is uncertain, the decision does not draw from the text which way it will turn the register. A direction that cannot be drawn is not chosen from the office address either.

What is separated in a usurped design

The transfer claim is read from the register, and the three years written in the file are kept. An Ankara lawyer reads from the document that the office being in Çankaya does not change the competent authority. A new year or an article number is not added. An employee's design is not pasted onto the sentence of usurpation.

Conclusion

If someone else registered my design, the true right holder may ask for a transfer. The three years are read from publication or from disclosure to the public. In bad faith the period does not run. A design made as required by the work is, as a rule, with the employer. The frame stands on the intellectual property page. The basis is Articles 70, 71 and 73 of the Industrial Property Code.

Legislation

Frequently asked questions

They registered my design in someone else's name. Does the register return to me by itself?

No. The true right holder asks the court for a transfer of ownership, or to be recognised as the right holder. The register does not change by itself before a petition is filed.

Does this request have a period?

If it is not put forward within three years from publication of the registered design, or from the unregistered design being made available to the public, the claim falls. If the other side is in bad faith, this period does not run.

Can I also take back a design I drew at work?

The right holder of a design made as required by the work, or relying to a large extent on the business's experience, is the employer unless the contract or the nature of the work says otherwise. Not every employee can ask for the registration for themselves.

Related reading

This article sits under one practice area. The neighbouring guides carry the detail that does not belong in this text.

Practice areas · Intellectual property

Sources

AK

Author

Av. Ayşenur Konar

Lawyer on the Ankara Bar Association roll, founder of Konar Hukuk. This text is general information; a specific file is reviewed separately. Author profile · Editorial policy

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