Design Registration: How to Protect Your Product Design for Up to 25 Years

A product's success often starts with how it looks: the line of a chair, the form of a package, the curve of a tap. When that appearance is copied, a trademark will not protect you — because a trademark protects the name and logo, not the shape of the product. The right that protects a product's external appearance is the industrial design registration. This article explains, under SMK 6769, what design registration does, its requirements and its term.

What does design registration protect?

Design registration protects the appearance of a product or part: lines, contours, colours, shape, texture, materials and ornamentation. What is protected is the product's aesthetic/visual feature, not its technical function. If a technical solution is involved, that is the subject of a patent or utility model.

The practical distinction comes down to three questions:

• Is the product's name/logo being copied? → Trademark.
• Is the product's technical way of working being copied? → Patent / utility model.
• Is the product's appearance, its form being taken? → Design registration.

Two requirements: novelty and individual character

For a design to be registrable, SMK 6769 art. 56 requires two things:

1. Novelty: No identical design has been made available to the public anywhere in the world before the filing date.
2. Individual character: It must produce on the informed user a clearly different overall impression from earlier designs.

An important flexibility: the grace period. If you (or someone with your consent) disclosed the design through an exhibition, fair or sale, novelty is not destroyed if you file within 12 months of that disclosure. Even so, the safe route is to file before any public disclosure.

Term of protection: 5 years + renewals to 25 years

The term of protection for a registered design is 5 years from the filing date. This term is extended in five-year periods, renewable four times, to a total of 25 years (SMK art. 69). Missing a renewal date forfeits the right; that is why the renewal calendar is as important as the registration itself.

Multiple designs in one application

If a product family has several variations, you do not have to file separately for each. SMK art. 61 allows multiple designs in a single application (within the same class, up to a ceiling). This is the cost-effective way to protect a collection — for example, the different modules of a furniture range.

Locarno classification

Designs are classified under the Locarno system, the counterpart of the Nice classification used for trademarks (furniture, packaging, textiles, lighting, etc.). The correct Locarno class is the basis both of the application and of any later similarity assessment. For a short definition, see the Locarno entry in the glossary.

The application process — in brief

1. Visual preparation: Drawings or photographs (from different angles) that clearly show the design. These visuals define the scope of protection.
2. TÜRKPATENT filing: Filing via EPATS with the Locarno class, applicant details and visuals.
3. Formal examination and publication: The application is published in the Bulletin.
4. Opposition window: Within 3 months of publication, third parties may oppose; novelty/individual character can be contested during this period.
5. Registration: If there is no opposition, or it is rejected, the registration certificate is issued.

For designs, TÜRKPATENT does not run a broad similarity search as it does for trademarks; that is why your own prior search before filing and proper visual preparation are the strongest defence against later oppositions.

The limit of an unregistered design

Protecting an unregistered design is far harder: when it is copied, you must prove that you created the design first and that the other party knew this. Registration, by contrast, gives you a date-stamped right grounded in the register — significantly easing the burden of proof in a dispute. "An unregistered mark is ownerless property" applies to designs too.

Which right is right for you?

For most products the correct answer is to use more than one right together: a trademark for the product name, a design for its form, a patent for its technical solution. To see which combination fits you, read the Trademark, Patent or Design? decision guide, and use the Fee Calculator for an estimated cost.

We run the industrial design registration process at Asil Patent — under the agency of Salih Aksebzeci — together with filing, publication monitoring and, where needed, opposition defence. For details, see the Industrial Design Registration service page.

Sources

1. SMK No. 6769 arts. 55-81 (designs)
2. SMK No. 6769 arts. 56 (novelty & individual character), 61 (multiple applications), 69 (term of protection)
3. Locarno Agreement — WIPO international design classification

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Author: Salih Aksebzeci · TÜRKPATENT Agent Registry No. 188 · Published: 2026-06-09