Trademark Overview: Vietnam Intellectual Property Law

1. Concept

A trademark is a sign used to distinguish goods and services of different organizations and individuals.

A sign used as a trademark must be a visible sign in the form of letters, words, drawings, images, three-dimensional figures or a combination of such elements, expressed in one or more colors or an audio sign expressed in graphic form.

[Article 4.16, Article 72 of the Law on Intellectual Property]

2. Right to register trademark

According to Article 87 of the Law on Intellectual Property:

1. Organizations and individuals have the right to register trademarks for use goods produced by ourselves or services provided by me.

2. Organizations and individuals conducting legal commercial activities have the right to register trademarks for products that they bring to market but are manufactured by others, provided that the manufacturer does not use that trademark for the product and does not object to that registration.

3. Legally established collective organizations have the right to register collective trademarks for use by their members in accordance with the regulations on the use of collective trademarks; for signs indicating the geographical origin of goods and services, the organization with the right to register is a collective organization of organizations and individuals conducting production and business in that locality; for place names and other signs indicating the geographical origin of local specialties of Vietnam, the registration must be permitted by a competent state agency.

4. Organizations with the function of controlling and certifying the quality, characteristics, origin or other criteria related to goods and services have the right to register certification marks on the condition that they do not produce or trade in such goods and services; for place names and other signs indicating the geographical origin of local specialties of Vietnam, registration must be permitted by a competent state agency.

5. Two or more organizations or individuals have the right to jointly register a trademark to become co-owners under the following conditions:

a) The use of such trademark must be on behalf of all co-owners or used for goods and services in which all co-owners participate in the production and business process;

b) The use of such trademark does not cause confusion to consumers about the origin of goods and services.

6. The person with the right to register as prescribed in Clauses 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of this Article, including the person who has submitted the application for registration, has the right to transfer the right to register to another organization or individual in the form of a written contract, for inheritance or succession in accordance with the provisions of law, provided that the organizations or individuals to whom the right to register is transferred must satisfy the conditions for the person with the corresponding right to register.

7. For a trademark protected in a country that is a member of an international treaty that prohibits the representative or agent of the trademark owner from registering that trademark and of which the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is also a member, that representative or agent shall not be allowed to register the trademark without the consent of the trademark owner, unless there is a legitimate reason.