Founded in 1983, DESTEK PATENT has been a major name in intellectual property (IP) management and protection in Turkey and providing counsel and legal representation in all areas of the protection of intellectual property, particularly on Industrial Property Law, Unfair Competition, Copyright, Licensing, Customs Seizures, Mediation, Mergers & Acquisitions and Corporate Law to many leading companies, SMEs, universities and research organizations for both Turkish and overseas clients.

Destek Patent in Numbers

History
Destek Patent was founded by Kemal Yamankaradeniz in 1983, as a limited company, basing on consultation with Prof. Dr. Metin Yerebakan. The firm was located in Bursa city, the heart of Turkey for textile and automotive industry with two hours away by ferry from Istanbul.

However, at those days, domestic companies had almost no knowledge and experience of industrial property rights in Turkey and these rights were still protected under the Patent Law 1879 and the Trademark Law (1950s). The Turkish Patent Institute and modern IP legislation were first introduced as of 1995. The title of patent/trademark attorneyship and entitlement exam was initiated in 1997 and first specialized IP court is established in 2001.

Under the leadership of Kemal Yamankaradeniz and especially between 1983-2000, Destek Patent’s partners and senior experts were closely involved in IP awareness and training activities for the companies, universities, governmental organizations and associations apart from their routine works. Within this mission, they were invited to lecture at hundreds of seminars, lectured as guest teachers at universities and colleges, and attended thousands of meetings with clients and various authorized people. The first International IP Congress in Turkey was organized by Destek Patent, namely in Bursa in 1996. We believe this mission and our contribution will never end.

Destek Patent’s first branch office was opened in 1985 in Ankara, the capital, due to the bureaucratic nature of the IP business and to be closer to the Turkish Patent Institute and other government offices. This was followed by the Istanbul office in 1992, Izmir office in 1998, Konya office in 1999, Gaziantep office in 2005 and so on.

In 2004, Destek Patent acquired Bursa Patent Ltd. and then transformed its legal status into incorporation by moving its headquarter to Istanbul in 2005. Bursa office still serves partly as operational center, i.e. for overseas affairs, where some of our IP attorneys are located.

Destek Patent has driven change and broken new ground in Turkish IP matters in its three-decades history. It is thus mentioned and ranked as a pioneering firm in the Turkish IP field.

Organizational Structure

Wide scope of IP services has been maintained by six departments, namely Patents, Designs, Legal, Foreign Affairs, Domestic and Overseas Trademarks. These are supported by Translations, Oppositions, Incentives, Watch & Renewals Divisions in cooperation with HR, Accounts, IT, Purchasing and Clients Relations administration units, each of which has been managed and operated in accordance with written procedures. The Management Board holds meetings bi-weekly, with the participation three partners and general manager and headed by the senior partner while the Executive Board holds weekly meetings on-line, with the participation all department heads and headed by the general manager.

Quality Management & Technological Infrastructure

Destek Patent is committed to providing utmost service quality for clients with reasonable costs. Accordingly, individuals’ and overall organizational performance is continuously observed and improved with respect to HR and Quality concerns as well as technological infrastructure.

Achieving ISO 9001 certification is part of the integrated approach to optimize performance and supports our commitment to maintain the highest quality services. In addition, our dedicated IT department always follows the new trends for providing best service to the clients.

Destek Patent has been investing and trusting an extensive and secure in-house IP work management software for automatic tracking of all sort of IP files, critical dates, standard forms, invoicing, document management, client contacts in order to implement a cost effective management, since 1995.

Our IT solution partners are Microsoft, HP and Vodafone and our infrastructure further includes:

• Object oriented business ERP software with secure on-line access for clients, including CRM-HR-EMRP-B2B-B2C applications,
• Databases of MS SQL^® and Oracle^®.
• Encrypted intranet gateway inter-offices: Secure VPN^® access and connected with Vodafone^®,
• MS Office 365® platform for communications,
• IBM^® xSeries servers and routers, VM wire virtualization and storage capability,
• CISCO^® Network with a firewal of double security layers, i.e FortiGate^® and Vodafone^® firewall platform.
• VEEAM back-up system with Disaster Recovery System.