Reference
Who owns the drawings you send a factory
Drawings sent to a Turkish factory are protected before anything is signed. Turkish copyright law lists maps, plans, projects and sketches, and architectural, industrial, environmental and stage design projects, as protected works (Law 5846, art. 2(3)). Exploiting a plan entrusted to you is unfair competition under the Commercial Code (Law 6102, art. 55(1)(c)(1)), punishable on complaint with up to two years under art. 62. One question is left open by statute: who owns the design (Law 6769, art. 73(4)).
Every supplier answers this question the same way, with a reassurance and an offer to sign something. The reassurance is worth what the supplier is worth. What is worth reading is the law underneath it, because in Türkiye three separate statutes already answer the question, they answer three different halves of it, and only one half is left to the contract. This page sets out which is which, with the article number for each so you can read the original.
Four questions, and which law answers each
The confusion in this conversation comes from treating one question as one object. It is three: the drawing you drew, the appearance of the piece it describes, and the file you handed to somebody. Different statutes, different tests, different remedies.
| The question | The answer in Turkish law | Where it is written | What is left to the contract |
|---|---|---|---|
| Is my drawing protected before we sign anything? | Yes. Maps, plans, projects and sketches, and architectural and urban design projects, architectural models, and industrial, environmental and stage design projects, are all listed as works of science and literature. No registration and no deposit is required. | Law 5846 (FSEK), art. 2(3) | Nothing. This protection does not depend on any agreement |
| Can a factory use a plan I entrusted to it? | No. Unauthorised exploitation of a work product entrusted to you, such as a tender, a calculation or a plan, is an enumerated act of unfair competition, and so is exploiting a third party's plan you ought to have known was handed over without authority. | Law 6102 (TTK), art. 55(1)(c)(1) and (2) | Nothing, though naming the drawing set in the purchase order makes the entrustment easy to evidence |
| Who owns the design of the piece itself? | The design right belongs to the designer or their successors. Where the design is made under a contract for work outside an employment relationship, ownership is determined by the terms of the contract between the parties. | Law 6769 (SMK), art. 70(1) and 73(4) | This is the clause to write. The statute points at your contract and stops there |
| Does showing it to a factory make it public? | Not where it is disclosed under a condition of confidentiality: that is expressly excluded from making a design available to the public. A disclosure in the twelve months before filing also leaves novelty and individual character intact, including one that came from abuse of the relationship with the designer. | Law 6769 (SMK), art. 57(1) and 57(2) | The confidentiality condition, which can be one sentence in the enquiry |
The drawing and the design are two different objects
A guestroom drawing set is protected twice over, under two regimes that do not test the same thing. Law 5846, the Turkish copyright act, lists in article 2(3), among works of science and literature, “her nevi haritalar, planlar, projeler, krokiler”: maps, plans, projects and sketches of every kind. The same subparagraph goes on to name architectural and urban design projects, architectural models, and industrial, environmental and stage design projects. Protection attaches on creation. There is nothing to file.
Law 6769, the Industrial Property Code, protects something else: the appearance of the product. Article 55(4) draws the line between a design registered under the Code and an unregistered design, which is protected where it was first made available to the public in Türkiye. So a drawing can be a protected work under one statute while the piece it depicts is or is not a protected design under the other, and the two answers arrive independently.
Naming the right one matters when something goes wrong, because the tests differ. A copied drawing is an act against the work; a copied chair is an act against the design. A specification that says only “our IP” has not chosen either.
A plan entrusted to a supplier is protected without a separate agreement
This is the part of the answer nobody in the furniture trade publishes, and it is the strongest of the three. Article 55(1)(c) of the Turkish Commercial Code enumerates, among the principal acts of unfair competition, “unauthorised exploitation of another's work products”, and gives three examples in the statute itself. The first reads “Kendisine emanet edilmiş teklif, hesap veya plan gibi bir iş ürününden yetkisiz yararlanmak”, which is unauthorised exploitation of a work product entrusted to you, such as a tender, a calculation or a plan.
The second example reaches the supplier who received the file from somebody else: exploiting a third party's tender, calculation or plan where it ought to have been known that it was entrusted or supplied without authority. The third reaches reproduction: taking over another's market-ready work product by technical means of reproduction, without an appropriate contribution of one's own. Article 55(1)(d) adds the unlawful disclosure of production and business secrets.
None of the three requires a signed confidentiality agreement to operate. The agreement is still worth having, because it fixes what was handed over and when. But the floor is statutory, and it is the same floor under every company registered in Türkiye.
What a court can actually order
Article 56 of the Commercial Code lists what the claimant may ask for: a declaration that the act was unfair, an injunction against it, removal of the material situation the unfair competition produced, correction of false or misleading statements, and destruction of the means and goods involved where that is unavoidable to prevent the infringement. Damages follow where there is fault, and moral damages are available on the conditions set by article 58 of the Code of Obligations.
The sentence at the end of article 56(1) is the one worth knowing: in awarding damages the judge may also award the equivalent of the benefit the defendant could have obtained as a result of the unfair competition. That is a different measure from the claimant's own loss, and it is the measure that fits a copied design.
Article 62 adds the criminal side. Intentionally committing one of the acts listed in article 55 is punishable, on the complaint of a person entitled to bring the civil action, with imprisonment of up to two years or a judicial fine, unless the act constitutes a more serious offence.
The one thing the law leaves to your contract
Article 70(1) of the Industrial Property Code opens plainly, “Tasarım hakkı, tasarımcıya veya onun haleflerine ait olup”: the design right belongs to the designer or to their successors. Article 73 then works through the cases. Designs made by employees in the course of their duties belong to the employer. Designs made by students and by unpaid interns follow the same rules.
Then article 73(4), which is the whole answer to the commissioning question: “Hizmet ilişkisi dışında kalan iş görme sözleşmeleri çerçevesinde yapılan tasarımlarda hak sahibi, taraflar arasında akdedilen sözleşme hükümleri çerçevesinde belirlenir.” Where a design is made under a contract for work outside an employment relationship, the right holder is determined by the terms of the contract between the parties. There is no default that fills the gap in favour of whoever paid the invoice.
So a design developed with a factory during a project is owned by whoever the contract says owns it, and by nobody in particular if the contract is silent. One clause settles it, and it costs nothing to write while the enquiry is open.
Registered and unregistered designs run on different clocks
A registered design runs five years from the application date and is renewable in five-year terms up to twenty-five years in total (article 69(1)). An unregistered design runs three years from the date the design was first made available to the public (article 69(2)). Those are two different products, and a studio holding neither is relying on the copyright and unfair-competition routes above.
The two also differ in what they stop. Article 59(2) gives the holder of an unregistered design the right to prevent the listed acts only where the protected design has been copied. An identical or indistinguishable design created independently, by a designer who could not reasonably have known of the earlier disclosure, is not treated as a copy. A registered design carries no such limitation.
Article 57(2) is the practical one for a studio that has already shown work. A disclosure made in the twelve months before the application, by the designer, by a successor, by a third party with their permission, or as a result of abuse of the relationship with them, does not affect the design's novelty or individual character. Showing work at a fair or to a client does not automatically close the door on registering it.
What to put in the enquiry, in five lines
Name the drawing set: title, revision and date, so what was handed over is a matter of record rather than of memory. State that it is disclosed in confidence, which is the same condition article 57(1) recognises. Say who owns designs developed during the project, because article 73(4) sends the question straight back to this sentence. Say whether the pieces may appear in the maker's catalogue or portfolio, and in what form. And say what happens to the files at closeout.
Five lines, written once, before any drawing leaves the office. They cost nothing at enquiry stage, and every one of them is easier to agree then than after a piece has been made.
How we work with a drawing set
We are the factory behind other studios' designs. Work arrives as CAD, our drawing office issues production drawings against it, and those go back for review before a panel is cut. The commitment we publish on the studios page is the one we hold to: your drawings stay yours, with no reuse, no catalogue resale and no building your design for another client. Project-specific room drawings implement your design, which is why the sheets you see from us are generic product sheets rather than somebody else's rooms. Send DWG, PDF or a concept board and what comes back is shop drawings, a mock-up plan and a factory-direct quotation.
Every article, so you can read it yourself
Every provision on this page was read on 4 September 2026 in the official consolidated text at mevzuat.gov.tr, the Presidency's legislation database: Law 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works, article 2(3); Law 6769, the Industrial Property Code, articles 55, 57, 59, 69, 70 and 73; and Law 6102, the Turkish Commercial Code, articles 55, 56 and 62. The Turkish sentences quoted above are the statutory text. These are Turkish statutes, which is the point of citing them here: they are the rules a supplier registered in Türkiye is already working under, and your own counsel can read every one of them at the article number given.
Questions we get asked
- Will a Turkish factory resell my design?
- Doing so is an enumerated act of unfair competition. Article 55(1)(c)(1) of the Turkish Commercial Code names unauthorised exploitation of a work product entrusted to you, such as a tender, a calculation or a plan, and article 62 makes the intentional commission of an article 55 act punishable on complaint with up to two years' imprisonment or a judicial fine. Article 56 gives the civil route: injunction, removal of the resulting situation, destruction of the means and goods where unavoidable, damages where there is fault, and the equivalent of the benefit the defendant could have obtained.
- Do I need an NDA before sending drawings to a factory?
- The statutory protections above operate without one. A written confidentiality condition is still worth including, for two reasons: it records what was handed over and when, and article 57(1) of the Industrial Property Code expressly provides that disclosing a design to a third party under a confidentiality condition does not count as making it available to the public.
- Are my drawings copyright even though I never registered them?
- Yes. Article 2(3) of Law 5846 lists maps, plans, projects and sketches of every kind, architectural and urban design projects, architectural models, and industrial, environmental and stage design projects among works of science and literature. Turkish copyright arises on creation; there is no registration requirement and no deposit.
- Who owns a design we developed together with the factory?
- Whoever the contract says. Article 70(1) of Law 6769 gives the design right to the designer or their successors, and article 73(4) provides that for designs made under a contract for work outside an employment relationship the right holder is determined by the terms of the contract between the parties. There is no statutory default, which is why this is the one line that has to be written down.
- Does showing a piece at a fair stop me registering the design?
- Not within twelve months. Article 57(2) of Law 6769 provides that a disclosure made in the twelve months before the application or priority date, by the designer or a successor, by a third party with their permission, or as a result of abuse of the relationship with them, does not affect novelty or individual character.
- How long does design protection last in Türkiye?
- A registered design runs five years from the application date and can be renewed in five-year terms up to twenty-five years in total. An unregistered design runs three years from the date it was first made available to the public, and it bites only against copying: an independently created design by someone who could not reasonably have known of the earlier disclosure is not treated as a copy.
- Will our pieces appear in your catalogue?
- Not your designs. The commitment published on our studios page is no reuse, no catalogue resale and no building your design for another client, and the sheets we publish are generic product sheets rather than project rooms. If you want the position recorded on the order, write the portfolio line into the purchase order and it travels with the contract.
Related
Send a drawing set. See what comes back.
DWG, PDF or a concept board, with the confidentiality line if you want it on the record. Shop drawings, a mock-up plan and a factory-direct quotation come back. We reply within 24 working hours, in English, Arabic or Turkish.
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