New Amendments to Vietnam’s IP Law

HANOI - The National Assembly of Vietnam has officially passed the amendments to the Intellectual Property Law, marking the most significant changes to the law since its creation, and bringing Vietnam’s IP regime more in line with international standards. The amendments will come into force on January 1st, 2023.
Notable amendments crucial to IP owners in view of the amended law:

Trademark
Sound marks are protected for the very first time in Vietnam, but under the condition of ‘sound sign represented in graphical representation’. According to the new law, an action of requesting the Vietnam IP Office to suspend the examination of a rejected trademark while waiting for the results of the invalidation or cancellation of a cited mark is recognized by law for the first time. 

Copyright
According to the new law, the author will lose the right to stop third parties from distributing his work after the first distribution of the original version of the work in question. The new IP law allows an author to transfer the right to name a work to an individual or organization that receives the economic rights.

Patent
The new law limits and clarifies the inventions subject to security control including inventions of technical fields having an impact on national defense and security created in Vietnam and under the registration rights of Vietnamese citizens residing in Vietnam or organizations established under Vietnamese jurisdiction. 

Design
The new law establishes new requirements for the process for ID applications in order to align with the Hague Agreement. It allows the request for late publication of the design application, but not later than 7 months from the filing date.

Should you have further questions on the new amended Law, please contact AGIP Asia office at asia@agip.com