In morning of November 17, 2017, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and the International Trademark Association (INTA) announced the results of implementing in two years of “The well-known trademark protection project of Vietnam”. This was the last important event as part of the project which was carried out under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on ‘building and developing cooperating activities in the field of intellectual property’ signed by the MOST and INTA on March 24, 2015.
The project aimed to research, evaluating, collecting and aggregating information and ideas from the relevant State agencies, trademark owners, enterprises and industrial property representatives on the difficulties in the implementation of the current Vietnamese law regulations related to the recognition, protection and enforcement of the rights of well-known trademarks. The project also contributed to formulating a theoretical and practical basis for the proposal of amendment and supplement to the current Vietnamese law regulation on well-known trademarks.
The project board has five criteria for evaluating the trademark, including (i) the level of awareness or recognition of the trademark of a relevant section of the public; (ii) the time, scale and geographic area of any use, promotion of the trademark image; (iii) the time and geographic area where the trademark was registered or handed in dossier; (iv) Successful dossiers of the trademark right and (v) the value associated with the trademark. There are 8 brands involved in this project, including 05 national brands and 03 international brands. After reviewing criteria for evaluating the well-known mark, the organizers selected and recognized 6 well-known brands, namely Vinamilk, IKEA, Vinacafe, Nike, Petrolimex and Pham & Associates.
The research report is expected to be an important reference source for experts in the construction of protection policy and right enforcement for the well-known trademark in Vietnam.
Also in the framework of the ceremony, the connection of process of the effective cooperation among the parties, MOST and INTA signed the following MOU on deploying the co-ordinated activities about “The protection of intellectual property rights in e-commerce “.
Etienne Sanz de Adeco, the CEO of INTA, stated that the reason why they chose this topic is because that the protection of Intellectual Property rights in the commercial environment is considered as the “hot” point of the protection of Intellectual Property rights in the future. This is not only in Vietnam but also in many other countries in the world. E-commerce is fundamentally changing in the approach of enterprises to consumers.
After signing the MOU, INTA will coordinate with MOST in order to focus on the strategy of promotion of creativity in the e-commerce environment before the explosion of global information technology.
