Several domestic businesses have not paid much attention to the issue ofregistering for intellectual property rights and have even hesitated tocooperate with the authorities in preventing counterfeit goods.
This was revealed by Do Thanh Lam, deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade's Market Watch Department.
Figuresreleased by the department, at a conference on the role of enterprisesin preventing fake goods in Hanoi on April 22, showed that they haveannually issued fines for hundreds of thousands of violations relatingto counterfeit goods.
In the first quarter of this year alone,the market watch forces carried out 40,000 checks nationwide and handledmore than 25,000 cases involving fines totalling 70 billion VND, or 3.3million USD.
However, Lam said the number of violations in reality was much higher than the official figure.
"Oneof the important reasons is that the enterprises have not registeredtheir intellectual property right to protect their products," he said.
Headded that several firms had not cooperated properly with theauthorised agencies in preventing fake goods, even for their ownproducts.
According to Vietnamese laws, businesses which own theproducts' intellectual property rights have to cooperate with theauthorities in handling any violations as they have enough legal basisto protect their right.
Statistics from the National Office ofIntellectual Property (NOIP) revealed that last year only 106 out of 3.5million businesses in Vietnam registered for intellectual propertyrights.
"The number of applications registered for the rights hasreduced. Several firms hesitated to ask the authorised agencies abouthandling of the violations due to their economic situation," said NguyenThanh Hong, a representative from the office.
Hong added that the enterprises should be aware of their rights and mobilise human resources to protect their products.
Arecent report showed that fake Chinese goods accounted for 70 percentof the total fake goods in the US, while in Vietnam it was 10 percent.
He was concerned that Vietnam should take measures to avoid being listed as a country which produces counterfeit goods.
Hesuggested that businesses should regularly change their productsamples, reduce costs, and cooperate with the authorities in resolvingthe situation.-VNA