CPTPP has officially come into effect in Vietnam since January 14, 2019. In which, there are many strict regulations that require Vietnam to amend the legal system on IP, especially, the regulation on trademark protection and patent protection in Vietnam to comply with the commitments in CPTPP.
According to the Notice No. 13235/TB-SHTT dated November 23, 2018 of the National Office of Intellectual Property (NOIP) of Vietnam, as of January 01, 2019, the new version of IPC (2019.01) under Strasbourg Agreement shall be officially applied for the classification of technical solutions which claim protection in the application for patent registration in Vietnam. Besides the versions in two authentic languages as English and French provided by WIPO, the Vietnamese version also translated from English to assist individuals or organizations to register patent in Vietnam.
According to the Notice No. 13234/TB-SHTT date November 23, 2018, as from January 01, 2019, The Vietnamese version of the Nice Classification 11th Edition (11-2019), translated by the National Office of Intellectual Property (NOIP) from the English version published by WIPO, will be applied to the classification of goods and services for trademark registrations in Vietnam.
Over the years, the legal provisions on enforcement and protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Vietnam, including enforcement by criminal measures, have been strengthened and improved. Especially, the Criminal Code 2015 (amended in 2017) has for the first time regulated the criminal liability of legal entity for acts of infringement of IPRs in Vietnam.
There has been an increasing global issue of the so-called “bad faith trademark filings” in which a trademark is filed for unfair purposes in order to take advantage from the reputation of a well-known trademark whether registered or not registered yet in the country or region concerned. Nowadays, there are more and more free-riders with sophisticated ways of registering trademark in Vietnam in order to mislead the Trademark Office’s examination, notably, the recent bad faith filing over the registered trademark of Doosan Corporation.
Nowadays, among tens of thousands trademark in Vietnam filed and registered every year, there is a large number of trademarks that are not actually in commercial use or just used for first few years only. Meanwhile, many other individuals or organizations may desire to use those trademarks for their business activities to free-ride on the existing reputation by filing an identical application and requesting for cancellation of the cited trademark. As a consequent, those trademarks can be subjects for cancellation proceedings based on the basis of non-use trademark in Vietnam.
According to the Notice No. 3392/TB-SHTT dated April 19, 2018 of the National Office of Intellectual Property (NOIP) of Vietnam, as of June 01, 2018; the new version of IPC (2018.01) under Strasbourg Agreement shall be officially applied for the classification of technical solutions which claim protection in the application for patent registration in Vietnam. Besides the versions in two authentic languages as English and French provided by WIPO, the Vietnamese version also translated from English to assist individuals or organizations to register patent in Vietnam.
In addition to the Nice Agreement on the International Classification of Goods and Services, the Vienna Agreement on the International Classification of the Figurative Marks also applied for trademark registration in Vietnam. Accordingly, the Vienna Classification is essential for trademark registration in Vietnam in case that trademark consisting of the figurative elements, by the way facilitate the trademark search and examination on its registrability.
