NEWSLETTER-2017

312 NEWSLETTER 2017 Art. 74.1 regulates the possibility to apply to the competent special- ized court for intellectual and industrial property rights. The Rights of the Employers under the Provisions of Patents Employees’ inventions that are made during their term of em- ployment, in a private enterprise or public authority, while performing, as part of his/her obligation, the task he/she has been assigned to, or which are based to a great extent on the experience and work/activity of the private enterprise or public authority, are service inventions. The inventions that are not included within the definition, above, are free inventions. In all circumstances, employees are obliged to notify their employers when an invention has been created. Unlike the provi- sions of Works and Designs, the employers have the right of choice. Regarding service inventions, they have three choices: 1) to register the invention in whole, in their names, by applying to Turkish Patent Institute (“TPI”), 2) to apply to TPI to obtain partial rights to the inven- tion, 3) to allow the invention become a free invention by not acting for four months after the employees’ notification. The employees must allow their employers to benefit from the free invention, where the in- ventions fall within the field of activity of the employers’ enterprises, or where the employers’ enterprises are making serious attempts to become active in the field of the invention. If the employers do not respond to their employees within three months after the notification, they lose the right to benefit from the free invention. Employees are entitled to a fee in the event that the employers request the full rights of the invention, as is regulated for the Designs. The fee amount shall be determined with a written contract between the parties. Even though the IP Law stipulates an arbitration process concerning the conflicts arising from the amount of the fee, a com- muniqué on this matter has not yet been published. The Rights under the Contracts of Work The contracts of work do not feature the principle of superve- nience. In this section, the term ‘contractor’ will be used instead of ‘employee.’ Contractors working independently are the owner of their works and hold all moral and material rights from the beginning. How-