Employee Inventions under Turkish Law

Most inventions are made not in garages but in companies – by employees. Who owns the rights in such inventions and what the inventing employee receives for them is regulated by the Industrial Property Code No. 6769 (SMK) in a dedicated section modelled on German employee invention law, fleshed out by the Regulation on Employee Inventions. For companies with development and production sites in Turkey, correct handling is doubly important: it secures the company's ownership of the rights – and avoids compensation disputes with key employees.

Table of contents

• What distinguishes a service invention from a free invention?
• What notification duty does the employee have?
• How does the employer claim the invention?
• What compensation is the inventing employee entitled to?
• What duties apply to free inventions?
• What applies to university inventions and contract research?
• What can be regulated contractually – and where are the limits?
• How are disputes conducted and when do claims become time-barred?
• How are disputes over service inventions decided in practice? A recent appellate judgment
• How does practical implementation in the company succeed?
• Conclusion

What distinguishes a service invention from a free invention?

The law distinguishes service inventions ("hizmet buluşu") and free inventions ("serbest buluş"). Service inventions are inventions made by the employee during the employment relationship either in performance of the duties incumbent on him or based predominantly on the experience and work of the business. All other inventions are free – but are subject to notification and, in certain circumstances, offering duties so that the employer can review their classification. The distinction decides the allocation of rights and is regularly unproblematic for employees working close to invention (development, engineering, process technology), but prone to dispute and in need of documentation in borderline areas – for instance inventions outside the field of duties made using business knowledge.

What notification duty does the employee have?

The employee must notify the employer of a service invention in writing without delay; the notification must describe the technical problem, its solution and how the invention came about, and must identify the business experience used and any co-inventors. The employer may request additions to the notification within two months; if it fails to do so, the notification is deemed proper. For companies, a standardised notification form with clear responsibility is recommended – the notification sets the procedural deadlines in motion and is at the same time the technical basis of the later patent application.

How does the employer claim the invention?

The employer may claim the service invention in full or in part by written declaration to the employee. The declaration must be made within four months of receipt of the proper notification; upon full claim, all rights in the invention pass to the employer. In the case of a partial claim, the employer acquires a non-exclusive right of use while the invention otherwise becomes free; in that case the employee may demand that the employer take over the invention in full or release it if the restriction unfairly impedes his exploitation. If the employer misses the deadline, the invention becomes free. After a full claim, the employer is in principle required to file the invention for a patent; it may refrain from filing under statutory conditions, for instance where legitimate secrecy interests exist – even then the compensation claim remains unaffected. Deadline management is everything here: an overlooked four-month deadline can mean the loss of the invention to the employee.

What compensation is the inventing employee entitled to?

If the employer claims the service invention, the employee is entitled to reasonable compensation; this claim cannot be waived in advance. Decisive for the assessment are in particular the economic exploitability of the invention, the employee's position in the business and the business's share in bringing the invention about. The Regulation on Employee Inventions specifies the procedure and calculation on the German model via invention value and share factor, and provides that employer and employee agree on the type and amount of compensation within the prescribed periods; failing agreement, the statutory arbitration or dispute procedure is available. For patents on claimed inventions, milestones are also customary – at filing, grant and exploitation, for example. Companies should map compensation systematically through an internal invention policy instead of negotiating it case by case.

What duties apply to free inventions?

The employee must likewise notify the employer of free inventions without delay so that the employer can verify whether a free invention actually exists; the notification duty lapses only where the invention manifestly lies outside the business's field of activity. If the free invention falls within the employer's existing or concretely planned field of activity, the employee must, before exploiting it elsewhere, offer the employer at least a non-exclusive right of use on reasonable terms. These graduated duties protect the employer against the "migration" of business-adjacent innovations and should be explained in the internal policy to avoid conflicts.

What applies to university inventions and contract research?

Since Code No. 6769, a dedicated regime applies to inventions by university members: the rights in inventions arising from scientific activity belong in principle to the university, with the inventor entitled to participate – the law guarantees him at least one third of the exploitation proceeds. For publicly funded projects and contract research, the allocation rules of the funding conditions and the research contracts must additionally be observed. Companies cooperating with Turkish universities should regulate ownership, filing and exploitation responsibilities as well as publication and confidentiality questions expressly in the cooperation agreement and not rely on the statutory default allocation.

What can be regulated contractually – and where are the limits?

The provisions on service inventions are mandatory in the employee's favour: agreements curtailing his rights from notification, claiming and compensation in advance – such as blanket "all inventions belong to the employer" clauses without a compensation mechanism – are invalid to that extent. Permissible and sensible, by contrast, are provisions concretising the statutory procedure: notification channels and forms, responsibilities, compensation guidelines with valuation frameworks, confidentiality until filing, and the inventor's cooperation duties in the grant procedure, including after his departure. Inventions made after the end of the employment relationship are in principle free; for a transitional period, the attribution of documented developments begun during the employment can be regulated for invention-related activities.

How are disputes conducted and when do claims become time-barred?

Conflicts over employee inventions typically ignite at three points: the classification as service or free invention, the validity and timeliness of the claim, and the amount of compensation. Decisive for the evidence are the written invention notification with its date of receipt, laboratory journals and development documentation for allocating the contributions, and the exploitation figures for assessing compensation – companies should moreover contractually secure information duties and cooperation in the grant procedure from the departing inventor. For compensation disputes the Regulation provides an arbitration procedure; the state courts remain available in addition, with the labour courts or the specialised IP courts competent depending on the subject matter. Compensation claims are subject to the general limitation rules and should not be "accumulated" for years by either side – regular settlements under the internal policy prevent cumulative risks. Where the inventor status itself is disputed, the vindication or transfer action concerning the application or the patent comes into consideration.

How are disputes over service inventions decided in practice? A recent appellate judgment

How the principles described here work in practice is currently illustrated by the appellate judgment of the Ankara Regional Court of Appeal (20th Civil Chamber, E. 2025/1416, K. 2026/488, judgment of 5 March 2026). The dispute arose when an R&D employee founded his own company shortly after leaving and filed a patent application in his own name for an invention that – so the allegation – was still under development at his former employer. The claimant company argued that the application was in truth based on a service invention which the former employee, contrary to Article 114 of Code No. 6769, had never notified in writing; the application was thus usurped, and it sought a declaration that the right to the application in truth belongs to it.

The judgment shows concretely how the definition of the service invention emphasised at the outset is applied in practice: the court found that the employee was working in the company's R&D department at the time of the invention, that the subject matter of the invention corresponded directly to his field of work, and that according to the expert reports the work on the invention must have begun at least two months before the patent application – that is, while he was still employed. This technical finding is a vivid example of how the criterion of the invention "based predominantly on the experience and work of the business" is proven in litigation: what is decisive is not one party's assertion but the technical development timeline reconstructed backwards by the expert.

The defendant side argued that the invention was in fact based on the employee's academic work since university days and was therefore a free invention; even assuming a service invention, it had become free by operation of law because the employer had filed no patent application. This defence is an attempt to invert the warning "if the deadline is missed, the invention becomes free" – but it failed: since the notification duty had never been fulfilled by the employee, the employer's four-month claiming period had never started to run. The distinction is important: the running of the period presupposes a proper notification – where none was ever made, the employer cannot be charged with missing the deadline.

The court found under Articles 109(1) and 110(2) of Code No. 6769 that the right to the patent application belongs to the claimant and reserved to it the rights under Article 110(3) (such as transfer of the patent or a licence demand). The Court of Appeal found this assessment lawful in procedure and substance and upheld the judgment – corrected only on one point concerning fees, because the first-instance court had waived the subsequent collection of a court fee resulting from revaluation although court fees, as public claims, must be observed ex officio.

For employers, the decision condenses three practical lessons: first, where an employee leaves without an invention notification and files in his own name shortly afterwards, the true origin of the invention can be established through expert evidence – by determining, backwards from the filing date, when the technical work began. Second, the defence that "the employer missed the deadline, the invention became free" does not succeed where the notification duty was never fulfilled. Third, to avoid losses of rights it is decisive to monitor patent applications by departed employees and their newly founded companies and to act early in cases of suspicion – for instance via evidence preservation.

And finally: even though clients from "invention-prone" sectors such as engineering, technology and software may find themselves in disputes with their employees over the ownership of inventions, the practice on employee inventions in Turkey is well established. Where convincing evidence exists that the invention arose within the scope of the employment, the conflict can frequently be resolved amicably in discussions with those involved – and where litigation is unavoidable, we regularly achieve positive results before the courts.

How does practical implementation in the company succeed?

• Introduce an invention policy: notification form, deadline overview, valuation and compensation system, responsibilities (patent department, HR, external counsel)
• Set up a deadline workflow: monitor the two- and four-month periods from notification systematically
• Make employment contracts invention-proof: reference to the policy, confidentiality, cooperation after departure
• Clarify the interfaces: treatment of software (copyright) and designs alongside patentable inventions
• For international groups: regulate the allocation between the Turkish company and the group IP holding, including transfer pricing aspects

Conclusion

Turkish employee invention law follows the German model: notification, deadline-bound claiming and non-waivable reasonable compensation. For companies the risk lies less in the law than in its neglect – missed deadlines cost the invention, and missing compensation systems provoke disputes with the most important technical minds.

A lean invention policy with clear deadline workflows and a transparent compensation framework solves both problems and at the same time makes the inventive output of the Turkish site usable for the group IP strategy.

The IP/IT team at GEMS Schindhelm supports companies in introducing invention policies, in deadline and compensation management for employee inventions, and in disputes over the allocation of rights and inventor compensation.