Vietnam Patent Law
Vietnam’s laws regarding patents are slowly being updated from the old communist legal code--under which most inventors opted for a Certificate of Invention instead of a patent--in order to comply with the World Trade Organization’s entry requirements and the demands of foreign investors.
Other People Are Reading
-
Recent History
-
Vietnam’s intellectual property laws began to change in the 1980s, when financial crises forced the government to abandon the centrally planned economy model and move toward a more liberalized trade regime. The government shifted the economic framework gradually through a series of reforms in the 1980s and 1990s. While the major reforms have been implemented, a lot remains to be changed in order to bring Vietnam’s legal code into line with international intellectual property rights (IPR) norms.
1989
-
The first major change to IPR protections occurred in 1989 with the Ordinance on the Protection of Industrial Property Rights. The ordinance granted basic protections for inventions originating in Vietnam and specified that patent rights are exclusive to the patent holder.
-
1995 Civil Code
-
The basis for Vietnam’s current IPR framework was established through the 1995 Civil Code. The Civil Code brought Vietnam’s IPR protections into line with the minimum requirements laid out by the WTO’s Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property agreement (TRIPS), including an extension of patents for inventions from 15 to 20 years.
Intellectual Property Law
-
As of 2006, most of Vietnam’s disparate pieces of IPR legislation have been updated and united under the Intellectual Property Law. The new law changed, clarified and added to the legal code regarding patents. Patent terms, definitions and protections remain the same, while the exclusions and penalties were changed. Vietnam does not grant patents for treatments or animal and plant varieties, or inventions judged “contrary to morality or public order.”
Issues
-
Vietnam’s economic growth has given rise to competing interests and pressures regarding IPR enforcement. On one hand, foreign companies and their countries’ diplomats demand stronger laws and enforcement. On the other hand, pressure to produce more units faster and cheaper gives incentives to factory managers to produce and sell unauthorized units on the side, or to start national companies that use foreign companies’ technology without permission. Prosecutions for IPR violations have gone up since the Intellectual Property Law, but infringements remain commonplace.
-
References
- Photo Credit industry image by Rick Sargeant from Fotolia.com
