General requirements for patent applications

1. Invention

An invention is a technical solution in the form of a product or process to solve a specific problem by applying the laws of nature. (Article 4.12 of the Law on Intellectual Property)

Inventions are protected in the form of Patents for Inventions or Patents for Utility Solutions. (Article 58.1 of the Law on Intellectual Property)

2. General requirements for application

- Each application may only request one protection certificate and the type of protection certificate requested must be appropriate to the technical solution subject stated in the application;

- All documents of the application must be in Vietnamese. Documents in other languages as prescribed in Article 100.2 of the Law on Intellectual Property must be translated into Vietnamese;

- All documents must be presented vertically (except drawings, diagrams and tables that can be presented horizontally) on one side of A4 paper (210mm x 297mm), except for documents that are maps of geographical areas that can be presented on A3 paper (420mm x 297mm), with margins on all four sides, each margin 20mm wide, in Times New Roman font, text no smaller than size 13, except for supporting documents whose origin is not intended to be included in the application;

- For documents that need to be prepared according to a template, it is mandatory to use those templates and fill in all required information in the appropriate places;

- Each type of document, except for photo sets and industrial design drawings, if it includes many pages, must have its page number written in Arabic numerals;

- Documents must be typed or printed with indelible ink, clearly, cleanly, without erasures or corrections; if the document has 02 pages or more, it must be stamped with the seal of the applicant/document issuing agency (if any); in case of detecting insignificant errors due to spelling mistakes in the document submitted to the Intellectual Property Office, the applicant may correct those errors, but at the corrected place, there must be the signature of confirmation (and seal, if any) of the applicant;

- The terms used in the application must be consistent and common (do not use local dialects, rare words, or self-made words). Symbols, units of measurement, electronic fonts, and spelling rules used in the application must comply with Vietnamese standards);

- The application may be accompanied by supporting documents which are electronic data carriers of part or all of the content of the application document.

[Appendix I of Decree No. 65/2023/ND-CP]

3. Fees and charges for registration of inventions/utility solutions

- Application fee: 150,000 VND

- Formal examination fee: 180,000 VND/01 point requesting independent protection;

- Formal assessment fee from page 7 of the description onwards: VND 8,000/01 page;

- Application publication fee: 120,000 VND;

- Publication fee from the 2nd photo onwards: 60,000 VND/photo;

- Fee for assessment of priority claim (if any): VND 600,000/01 priority application;

- Information search fee for the appraisal process: VND 600,000/01 point requesting independent protection;

- Content assessment fee: 720,000 VND/01 point requesting independent protection;

- Content appraisal fee from page 7 of description onwards: 32,000 VND/01 page

Note: Patent/utility solution applications must be classified by international patent classification (IPC). In case the applicant does not classify or classifies incorrectly, the Intellectual Property Office will classify and the applicant must pay the classification fee according to regulations (VND 100,000/01 international patent classification).