How to Find a Trademark Owner in Turkey: Trademark Owner Search Guide

A trademark's owner is the natural or legal person recorded as the right holder in the register kept by TÜRKPATENT (Turkish Patent and Trademark Office); because the register is public, you can find out who it is free of charge. A trademark owner search in Turkey works on three levels: checking the applicant field on the search screen, opening the file by number and reading the record, and, where a conclusive answer is needed, confirming the current owner with a register extract.

Below you will find, step by step, how the owner appears in the register, why the name on screen is not always today's owner, how to find the owner of a foreign trademark and how to reach the owner for consent, a license, a purchase or a cease-and-desist letter.

Trademark Owner, Applicant and Attorney: Who Is Who?

The trademark owner is the person recorded in the register as the right holder of a registered trademark. The applicant is the person who filed the application and is the party to the file until registration; once the file is registered, the same person continues as the trademark owner unless there has been an assignment. A trademark attorney is a representative, entered in the register of attorneys, who acts before the Office on the owner's behalf; the attorney is not the owner of the mark. Under Article 160(4) of Industrial Property Law No. 6769 (SMK), once an attorney has been appointed, all actions are carried out by the attorney, and notifications served on the attorney are deemed served on the owner.

Access to this information is not a privilege: under Article 22(3) SMK, the register is public, and anyone can obtain a copy of a register entry by paying the fee. The main information about the owner you will see in the register is:

• Name or company name: first and last name for an individual, trade name for a company.
• Address: the address given at filing or at the last recordal; it may be out of date.
• Attorney: the registered trademark attorney handling the file before the Office, if any.
• Co-owners: if the mark belongs to more than one person, all of their names.

Co-ownership needs particular care. Under Article 147 SMK, where there is more than one right holder and no attorney has been appointed, actions before the Office other than withdrawal and surrender are carried out through a joint representative; Article 148(3) grants the other co-owners a right of pre-emption if one of them sells their share to a third party. An agreement made with just one co-owner does not bind the others.

How Do You Search for a Trademark Owner?

The fastest route is a name search and the most conclusive is the register extract, with a file-by-number review in between. Each of the four sources gives information at a different depth.

The applicant field on TÜRKPATENT's search screen

When you search by trademark name on TÜRKPATENT's public search screen, the name or company name of the applicant is listed next to each record. The screen also has fields for searching by owner details; such a search lets you see other files recorded in the name of the same person or company. Seeing the owner's portfolio is valuable, especially in purchase and licensing negotiations, for understanding the strength of the party across the table.

When searching by owner name, also try different spellings of the company name: "A.Ş." instead of "Anonim Şirketi" (the Turkish joint-stock company form), "Ltd. Şti." instead of "Limited Şirketi," spellings with and without Turkish characters, and the company's former name. In group structures, trademarks may be spread across the holding company, an operating company or a founding partner; a search under a single company name shows only part of the portfolio.

The "Applicant" column in the Webx tool

You can also see the same information with our free Turkish trademark search tool. It requires no sign-up, and its results table includes columns for the application number, trademark name, applicant, registration/publication date, status, classes and the image of the mark. When several similarly named records appear, the applicant column shows at a glance which files belong to the same person; like any other screen, however, it reflects the data at the moment of the search.

File details by number

Once you have noted the application number, opening the file on its own shows more than the name list does: the filing date, the classes, the file's history of actions and any traces of recorded transactions. If the same owner's name is spelled differently across several files, or an assignment appears in the file history, that is a sign you need to question the chain of ownership.

Confirming the current owner with a register extract

When money or legal consequences depend on the result — a purchase, a license, a letter of consent, a lawsuit — screen information is not enough; you request a trademark register extract from the Office. A register extract is the official copy of the trademark's entry in the register and shows the current owner, the attorney, and legal transactions recorded in the register such as assignments, licenses and pledges. Under TÜRKPATENT's 2026 trademark fee schedule, issuing a trademark register extract (item 02.01.05) costs TRY 2,890. We compare the other ways of confirming a trademark's registration status in all its dimensions in our article on how to check if a trademark is registered.

Is the Name on Screen Today's Owner? The Chain of Ownership

Not always. The name you see on the search screen is the file's record at a given moment; since then the mark may have changed hands, its owner may have changed its company name, or the owner may have died. The chain of ownership means the register record of the changes the mark has gone through, from its first applicant to its current owner. The table below summarizes how each link in the chain appears.

The amounts come from the 2026 schedule; current amounts should be checked against the TÜRKPATENT fee schedule, because it is updated every year. Attorney service fees are not included in the official fees.

To make the chain concrete with a made-up example: suppose the mark "KAHVEVA" was filed in the name of a café operator, assigned a few years later to a limited company, and that company later changed its name. Which name appears on the search screen depends on whether these transactions were recorded in the register and on when the screen was last updated. The register extract, by contrast, shows the links that have been recorded; if a link was never recorded, the chain breaks there, and you need to ask the other party for the document behind the missing link.

The difference between a change of company name and an assignment is important: with a change of name, the owner stays the same and only its name changes; with an assignment, the right passes to another person. Under Article 148(4) SMK, the validity of an assignment agreement depends on notarization. We explain the steps of an assignment and the clauses to look for in the contract in our guide on how to assign a trademark in Turkey.

Why Does an Unrecorded Assignment Matter?

An assignment that has not been recorded in the register exposes you to the risk of dealing with the wrong person. Under Article 148(5) SMK, legal transactions are recorded in the register, and rights arising from legal transactions not recorded in the register cannot be asserted against third parties acting in good faith; Article 148(8) applies the same rule to applications.

In practice this has three consequences:

• If the "new owner" in front of you does not appear in the register, the former owner recorded in the register could assign the mark to someone else as well; a person acting in good faith in reliance on the register is protected.
• Revocation requests and invalidation actions are directed against the recorded owner. Under Article 26(3) SMK, revocation requests are brought against the person recorded as owner on the date of the request, and under Article 25(3) an invalidation action is brought against the person recorded as owner on the date the action is filed; if ownership changes during a revocation examination, proceedings continue against the person shown in the register (Article 26(6)).
• Office correspondence goes to the address and attorney on record. For a mark whose record has not been updated, notifications may not reach the real addressee.

So if you are going to reach an agreement with a trademark's owner, make the contract with the person shown in the register, or first make recording of the assignment a condition. If the other party says it acquired the mark recently, ask for a copy of the notarized assignment agreement and a document showing the request filed with the Office to record the assignment. Withholding part of the price until recordal is complete, or tying payment to completion of the recordal, is a practical way of balancing the risk of this interim period.

How Do You Find the Owner of a Foreign Trademark?

If the owner is foreign, you look at two separate records: the file in the Turkish register and the mark's record in its country of origin or its international registration. For Madrid international registrations designating Turkey, the holder and representative details can be seen in WIPO's records via the Madrid Monitor tool. For national registrations, you need to check the database of the relevant country's trademark office; we have compiled which database to use for which country in our guide to international trademark search databases.

The file in the Turkish register offers a practical shortcut. Under Article 160(3) SMK, persons resident abroad can be represented before TÜRKPATENT only by a trademark or patent attorney. So a Turkish trademark file owned by a foreign party usually has an attorney in Turkey on record, and that attorney is the natural addressee for a first formal contact.

With foreign owners, pay particular attention to name matching. The same company may appear in the Turkish register, in the Madrid record and in its home country's register with different company-type suffixes (such as "GmbH," "Inc." or "S.A.") or spelling variations. To pin down the owner, look not only at the name but also at the address and country.

How Do You Reach a Trademark Owner?

Finding the owner's name is half the job; the real difficulty is reaching the right person through the right channel. The following order wastes the least time:

1. The attorney on record: If the file has an attorney, direct your correspondence to the attorney; the attorney passes your request on to the owner and is already the addressee in formal proceedings.
2. Trade registry records: If the owner is a company, use its trade name to check trade registry records and announcements in the Turkish Trade Registry Gazette to identify its current address and authorized signatories. We cover the difference between a trade name and a trademark separately in our article on company name search vs. trademark search.
3. Channels where the mark is used: The website, an online store, or the manufacturer or importer details on the packaging often give current contact information.
4. The address in the register: If the other routes fail, send a written notice to the address in the register; bear in mind that the address may be old and that you may need to document this.
5. Keeping a record: Whichever channel you use, correspond in a dated and provable way; you may need these records later in a consent, revocation or dispute process.

If the owner is an individual, use the information you obtain from the register only for your legitimate purpose and in line with the rules on the protection of personal data.

Why Do You Want to Know the Owner? A Roadmap by Purpose

A trademark owner search is not an end in itself but a precondition for the next step. The table below shows the six most common purposes and why identifying the owner correctly is critical for each.

In a purchase, identifying the owner is only the first step; encumbrances in the register, the state of use and the scope must also be examined. In a cease-and-desist letter, getting the content and the deadline right matters as much as identifying the addressee correctly; both topics are covered in detail in the linked guides.

5 Common Mistakes in Identifying the Owner

• Assuming the name on screen is today's owner. The list is no substitute for a register extract; assignments and name changes may have been recorded later.
• Assuming the company using the mark owns it. A dealer, distributor, franchisee or group company may use the mark without owning it.
• Confusing similar company names. Companies within the same group can have very similar names; tell them apart by tax number and address.
• Reaching agreement with only one of several co-owners. Transactions such as consent and assignment also require the agreement of the other co-owners.
• Relying on an unrecorded assignment. An assignment not recorded in the register cannot be asserted against third parties in good faith; make the contract conditional on recordal.

Conclusion

Because the register is public, a trademark owner search is a check anyone can carry out; the hard part is making sure the name you see is still valid today. Key takeaways:

• Owner information is in the TÜRKPATENT register and can be seen free of charge on the search screen.
• The name on screen is a record at one point in time; for the current owner, the register extract (TRY 2,890 in 2026) is what counts.
• Assignments, mergers and inheritance appear as separate entries in the register; an unrecorded assignment cannot be asserted against a third party in good faith.
• Turkish files with foreign owners usually have an attorney on record, and that attorney is the first point of contact.
• Revocation requests and invalidation actions run against the recorded owner; make your contracts with the person in the register too.

Shall we identify a trademark's owner for you?

Send us the trademark's name or application number through our contact page. Our team, which works with trademark attorneys authorized before TÜRKPATENT, will review the current recorded owner, any attorney on record and the entries in the chain of ownership, and report which person you should start your consent, license or purchase discussions with.