Intellectual Property Issues in Vietnam

When I first went onto the Viêt Nam News’ website, one of the first headlines I read was “Deputy PM Urges Intellectual Property Reforms.” I was initially drawn to the article because of the phrase “Intellectual Property.” (http://vietnamnews.vn/society/343742/deputy-pm-urges-intellectual-proper...) I had assumed that when someone created a new invention they automatically inherited rights to well, their property. I didn’t necessarily see how problems could arise, assuming inventors filed the proper patents. But that seems to be the problem. Not enough Vietnamese businesses and inventors are registering for Intellectual Property (IP) rights protections. As a result, Deputy Prime Minister Vũ Đức Đam wants the National Office of Intellectual Property (NOIP) to implement “radical reforms to better promote scientific and technological innovations in Việt Nam.”

Applications for IP right protection seem to be long and complicated and there isn’t enough staff in the NOIP to read and assess them. Out of the 390,000 applications the office received from 2011-2015, 340,000 were solved, leaving over 50,000 unsolved. The office apparently doesn’t have enough money to support such efforts as it only costs 1.26 million VND (56 dollars) to submit an application in Vietnam, but in other South East Asian countries, it’s much more expensive.

From a technological standpoint, the process of applying for rights protection in Vietnam is outdated. Applicants must submit hard copies and because the Law on Intellectual Property disallows assessors from contacting applicants, applicants can only be notified by mail if they made any mistakes on their application. The whole process can easily and unnecessarily become an unnecessarily long and arduous process, turning off businesses.

While this article was brief, it shed a lot of light on the current state of affairs in Vietnam. This push for IP reform shows how Vietnamese government officials want to modernize their country: patents create and exclude competition in the market economy and promote further innovation. Once brands and labels become official, it’s easier to enter the international market and become better known. In fact, upon some more research I found that Vietnam and the EU have a really new Free Trade Agreement (FTA). But this article also highlights the problem with this push when other aspects of society, from the people to the technology aren’t ready to modernize. The laws and other technicalities of IP are complicated, confusing and not accessible to regular people, which explain why they don’t see the use in filing an application/ the implications in not doing so. I’m interested to see how the country plans to reconcile these issues. I also wonder how this Agreement between the EU and Vietnam works/ came about especially because the EU is a lot bigger and more developed. Why the EU? Why not America, China, or South America?