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.
In case of dealing with infringements
of intellectual property rights in Vietnam, the holders should carry out
the following steps:
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.
