Settling Intellectual Property Rights Infringements: Perplexed from Regulation to Settlement

Normally, deliberate company naming and product branding identical or similar to the name or brand of other company are mostly aimed at self-seeking benefits. If a famous product name of a company is searched on the internet, results will be a big number of products carrying the same name made by other companies. This reality has sent not a few companies to dilemma. For example, an imitation of Ba Vi milk labels (a product of International Dairy Products Joint Stock Company - IDP) founded in June hugely affected the brand name of IDP.

 

In fact, companies take advantage of loopholes in branding and naming regulations, even raising extreme hardships for authorities. Mr Pham Thanh Tuan, Director of Vietin Law Company, said: Regulatory corridors for intellectual property in general and naming and branding of goods in particular only focus on regulations on capital, legal person and protection conditions while lacking clear definitions of naming and branding. Due to insufficiently detailed regulations, a company recently had to abandon its 20-year name because it wanted to transform into a joint stock company. The Department of Planning and Investment rejected its renaming, with the change from limited liability company to joint stock company, because another company had registered such a name.

 

Besides, the classification of violation degrees is overlapped, backward and weak. The management of geographical indications and brand names is usually assigned to administrative agencies (People's Committees at district and provincial levels) or local industry associations. This raises difficulties for handling agencies. Authorities themselves, in many cases, have not issued a clear regulation on granting conditions and use of geographical indications or certified brand names as well as regulations on post-granting inspection. Therefore, the lax management entails easy licensing and management and provides an environment for counterfeits and substandard goods.

 

Lieutenant Colonel Ha The Hung, head of counterfeit and intellectual property violation prevention unit in Hanoi, said the counterfeiting of Ba Vi milk is very difficult to be determined whether it is a counterfeit or a substandard goods.

 

The issue of lack of courts dealing with intellectual property has been pointed out by specialists for years and it has now become a major setback for settling intellectual property rights violations in Vietnam.

 

Mr Hoang Van Tan, Deputy Director of National Office for Intellectual Property (NoIP) under the Ministry of Science and Technology, said intellectual property rights infringements in Vietnam are mainly imposed with administrative sanctions. The current maximum fine of VND500 million is too low to act as a deterrence.

 

He recommended that intellectual property rights violations are civil relations; thus, it is best to hand them to courts for settlement of punishment on violators and compensations for victims. Nonetheless, not many intellectual property rights breaches are settled at court mainly because of clumsy procedures which usually result to delayed settlement. On the other hand, without specialised courts of intellectual property courts, judges are not trained of specialised knowledge of intellectual property. Instead, they also undertake other contentious matters like divorce. There is another reason that many businesses are still afraid of having disputes handled in court because the presence at court is deemed to be not good.

 

Thus, intellectual property infringements are imposed just administrative penalties and the fines are paid into the State Budget while victims do not get anything usually called as compensations. Without compensations for victims, the deterrence of laws is not high.