The ST25 sign lodged for trademark protection by a number of companies in the USA and Australia has been discussed recently. While the National Office of Intellectual Property of Vietnam affirmed that ST25 is a common name for rice, it cannot be protected as a trademark. What should business owners pay attention to select a trademark which meets the requirements under the Law of Intellectual Property (IP) of Vietnam and other countries?

The Vietnam Trade Office (VTO) in Australia has sent an official letter enclosed with documents and photos to the IP Australia to clarify that the ST24 and ST25 rice varieties were researched and produced by Vietnamese scientists and granted trademark protection certificates in the country.

Vietnam has so far had three Civil Codes of 1995, 2005 and 2015 since January 4, 1995, when the Vietnamese Government filed a formal request for accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Each of these Civil Codes presents an interestingly different point of view on intellectual property (IP) in relation to the national system of IP rights protection, as briefly depicted below.

Vietnamese companies were urged to pay more attention to overseas trademark protection registration as intellectual property rights were becoming important in international trade.

Greater awareness of the real impacts of intellectual property rights (IPR) violations is key to fighting piracy and counterfeiting, experts said at a workshop on April 20 in Ho Chi Minh City.

Industrial property constitutes one of the important domains of intellectual property. Formerly, as Vietnam developed a purely agricultural and self-sufficient economy without international economic integration, the industrial property issue did not appear in practical life and was not governed by law.

The effective protection of intellectual property (IP) rights would encourage innovation, healthy competition and development in Vietnam, experts said at a two-day seminar entitled Intellectual Property Rights and Vietnam’s Deep Integration into the World Economy, which closed in Hanoi on May 12.

When the new Intellectual Property (IP) Law took effect in July 2007, a new approach to the concept of well-known trademarks was established and a new regime for their protection adopted. Rights to a well-known trademark are automatically established through their use in commerce by consumers without any registration with competent authorities as required in previous legislation.

Vietnamese and Japanese experts, officials and business leaders discussed ways to promote their brands and trademarks and formulate innovative brand strategies in the global market, at a seminar held on October 12 in Ho Chi Minh City.

In the context of globalization, Vietnamese enterprises should protect their trademarks by registering them both at home and abroad, experts told a seminar on the Madrid System for International Registration of Trademarks and the Hague System for International Registration of Industrial Designs, held on August 17-18 in Ho Chi Minh City.