Since joining WTO, Vietnam has been coping to comply with the
international commitments in general and intellectual property area in
particular. In order to ensure fair legal environment and the benefits of intellectual property right holders, the
Vietnam laws provide a number of ways in which holders can apply the following
methods to protect their intellectual property rights:
Negotiation:
requesting organizations, individuals committing infringement acts of
intellectual property rights to terminate the infringing acts, apologize,
publicly rectify and compensate damages;
Using administrative remedies: requesting the competent agencies to handle infringement acts
of intellectual property rights;
Filing claim at court or arbitration center: initiating a lawsuit at a competent court or
an arbitrator to protect their legitimate rights and interests;
Negotiation is often
used in the first step to request the violator to stop the infringement of
intellectual property rights. However, this measure is not potentially
effective because it dependents on goodwill and cooperation of the violator as
well as the legal basis, evidences that you can provide to demonstrate and warn
of violating acts.
Relating to the
dispute settlements, due to high costs, complicated procedures and extended
time, this measure is not commonly selected as the best treatment.
In Vietnam, intellectual
property infringement is mainly dealt with through administrative measures.
Depending on their functions and responsibility, competent state management
agencies deal with infringements of intellectual property rights as per request
of the IP holders Currently, through the following agencies:
Inspectorate of the
Ministry of Science and Technology;
Economic Police of the
Ministry of Public Security and;
Market management of
the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
1.Submission of a written request to terminate an infringement
of intellectual property rights:
This step is optional
to save costs for the infringed party as well as deal with the infringement on
the basis of goodwill and cooperation. The infringed party should send
documents, including a persuasive Cease and Desist letter and evidences, to the
violator for the purpose of requesting them to terminate the violation and
commit not to repeat the infringement in the future. In fact, many intellectual
property right holders have reached their goals at this step providing that
they can collect enough proof.
2.Requesting the competent state agencies to handle acts of
infringement of intellectual property rights:
In this step, the
infringed party must prove both its ownership to the intellectual property and
information, evidence of the infringement by the infringing party.
The application of
administrative remedies is effective handled, so it should be preferable to
filling a lawsuit. After requesting the administrative agency to penalize the
infringing party, the right holder still remain their right to initiate a
lawsuit in court to claim of damages. Actually, the combination of
administrative measures and lawsuits at court would be more effective for
intellectual property right holders.
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