Vietnamese firms urged to protect brands overseas

As intellectual property rights are becoming increasingly important in international trade, experts urged Vietnamese companies to pay attention to overseas trademark protection registration.
As intellectual property rights are becoming increasingly important ininternational trade, experts urged Vietnamese companies to pay attentionto overseas trademark protection registration.

According to theVietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), only about 1,000Vietnamese trademarks are currently registered overseas. This is just amodest number given the hundreds of thousands of existing Vietnamesecompanies.

At a workshop on trends and measures of branddevelopment and intellectual property protection in international tradeheld on November 5, experts said brands and intellectual property wereincreasingly ruling global product value. They noted that brand valuenow accounted for one-third of the global economy's value.

DoanDuy Khuong, VCCI Deputy Chairman, said brand and trademark building mustalways be associated with registration for intellectual propertyprotection.

He observed that brands were critical for asustainable economy, and a competitive economy must have competitivebrands in both domestic and international markets.

However,according to Tran Van Hai, head of the Intellectual Property Division ofthe University of Social Sciences and Humanities, many companies havenot paid adequate attention to trademark registration, especiallyoverseas, and some don't even fully understand independent protectionprinciples under the provisions of the Paris Convention for theProtection of Industrial Property.

Hai said small, medium andlarge enterprises risked losing their intellectual property ininternational trade. He cited the cases of Vietinbank and Buon Ma Thuatcoffee as examples.

A Russian commercial bank registeredVietinbank's formal name, Incombank, while a Chinese company registeredcoffee brand Buon Ma Thuat for sole patent rights in China beginning2010.

The concerned Vietnamese companies were informed aboutthese registrations after the fact. The Chinese Ministry of Industry andTrade cancelled the Buon Ma Thuat Coffee trademark registration earlythis year.

Hai explained that trademark protection registrationwas indispensable and urged Vietnamese companies to have a betterunderstanding of international trademark protection principals.

Atthe workshop, experts also urged Vietnamese companies to pay attentionto online brand identity in a rapidly changing and digitised world, asthis allowed for differences in competition.-VNA

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