Domestic Patent Applications Up Almost One-fifth İn H1

The number of applications for patents in Turkey rose by nearly 20 percent in the first six months of 2012 compared to the first half of the previous year, according to a report by the government's patent institute.



The six months of 2012 saw 5,700 applications to the Turkish Patent Institute (TPE) for patents from Turkish inventors, up from 4,800 in 2011. Statistics on patent applications to the TPE, a branch of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, were compiled into a report this week by Acar Patent, a private firm that specializes in preparing patent applications for inventors.



The report found that the number of applications rose steadily throughout 2012 in Turkish patent center İstanbul. The number grew more dramatically in Ankara, where 300 applications have been submitted so far in 2012, a marked increase from just 417 throughout all of 2011. This year also saw a dramatic rise in the number of patents submitted in provincial cities, including 19 in the northern city of Samsun, double the number of granted up to this point last year.



While the jump is an encouraging start to the TPE's plans to see "50,000 annual domestic patents by the year 2023," the Acar report nevertheless stressed that Turkey remained "below the desired level of patent applications," citing much higher numbers of applications per capita in Europe and the US.



In 2011, the US Patent and Trademark Office recorded over 900,000 patents issued in the US during the year. Adres Patent, another patent application firm, estimates in a recent press release that "Turkey is 158 years behind the US" and 55 years behind South Korea in terms of intellectual property law and patent applications.



(Cihan/Today's Zaman)