19.02.2014

The Patent Winners Of Turkey

6 min

The Patent Winners Of Turkey

​Four of theKoç Group companies ranked in the top 10 and the other three companies in the top 30 list in the "Companies with the Highest Number of Domestic Patent Applications in 2013" ranking of theTurkish Patent Institute. Koç Group companies made a total of 400 patent applications in 2013. This figure was 310 the year before. Arçelik was at the top of the list with 193 patent applications, followed by Ford Otosan at the second spot with 80. Tofaş was number six with 48 patent applications and Türk Traktör was number nine with 20 applications. According to the patent application ranking, the other Koç Group companies in the top-30 list were; Otokar (11), Arçelik- LG (16) and Tüpraş (26). 

 "Quality is just as important as the quantity of patent applications." 

We have long been implementing the Intellectual Property Rights Strategy, pioneered by us in Turkey when we put it in writing in 2012. We have also been applying the Intellectual Property Rights Management Project for the past four years. Both initiatives have played significant roles in the success of our companies.  We acted on with the objective of bestowing our Group companies with the ability to manage their own intellectual property rights on their own and to carry out their work according to international standards. We are happy to see that they have achieved this goal," said CEO of Koç Holding Turgay Durak as he assessed the success of Koç Group companies in the Turkish Patent Institute ranking.  Durak asserted that quality is just as important as the quantity of patent applications. "All patent applications are evaluated by the Intellectual Property Rights Committees, which have been established in our companies, and applications are made only for innovations considered to have strategic and licensing potential and which will be used on the product directly."

Turgay Durak: We account for nearly 10 percent of all R&D spending in the private sector. 

Turgay Durak stressed the need to invest in new technologies for the future of our country's economy. He mentioned that Koç Group places the utmost importance on science and technology and that they continuously develop their efforts in this field on a company basis. "The highest number of R&D activities in Turkey takes place within our Group and we have 14 R&D centers that have been approved by the Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology.  A total of 3397 technical personnel, of whom 2553 are engineers with bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees, and 844 are technicians work in our R&D centers. We announced that our R&D spending totaled 2.7 billion Turkish lira for the past five years. We are proud to have added 677 million Turkish lira to this figure in 2013. The total number accounts for nearly 10 percent of total private sector R&D spending. Koç Group companies have achieved high rankings in the Turkish Patent Institute's list thanks to these efforts," said Turgay Durak. Turgay Durak expressed that as of 2013, the intellectual property rights portfolio of Koç Group included over 2,500 patent families as well as more than 5,500 patents, over 6,500 brands, over 700 designs and more than 4,000 Internet domains. He added that this is the largest intellectual property rights portfolio in Turkey and in the region.

Koç Group companies' rankings in the "Companies with the Highest Number of Domestic Patent Applications in 2013" list: 

Arçelik             :Number 1; 193 patent applications
Ford Otosan    : Number 2; 80 patent applications
Tofaş               : Number 6; 48 patent applications
Türk Traktör    : Number 9; 20 patent applications
Otokar             : Number 11: 16 patent applications (four companies share the number 11 spot in the list)
Arçelik-LG        : Number 16; 13 patent applications (two companies share the number 16 spot in the list)
Tüpraş             : Number 26; 10 patent applications (five companies share the number 26 spot in the list)