Intellectual Property Awareness Needs Raising

Mr Ta Quang Minh, Director of National Office of Intellectual Property (NOIP), said we must understand the concept of intellectual property before we can figure out intellectual property culture. Accordingly, intellectual property is the right to intellectual property owners. Intellectual property consists of three components, namely industrial property rights; copyright and related rights; and new plant rights. Industrial property includes inventions, industrial designs, trademarks, geographical indications, designs, trademarks, and the right against unfair competition.

 

In addition, the concept of intellectual property also exists in intellectual property protection mechanism. It means protecting exclusive rights and preventing others from using it in a certain time. In return, intellectual property rights owners must disclose information. Thanks to this information disclosure, the society knows new technologies and new inventions to avoid duplicated investments and unnecessary expenses. With costs saved, they will be able to invest to develop those technologies. By this mechanism, the protection of intellectual property rights will encourage creativity. Domestic enterprises will invest in new tech research and development to enhance the quality of products and boost the competitiveness of the entire economy. Nonetheless, in practice, due to insufficient awareness of intellectual property concept, intellectual property culture is still too distant in the society.

 

Mr Tran Viet Hung, former Director of NOIP, revealed that when Vietnam submitted WTO entry applications, it already had legal framework completion programme for protection of intellectual property rights. The Law on Intellectual Property was adopted in 2005 and was effective from July 1, 2006. Based on the above legal framework and creative activities, intellectual property protection has certain achievements. Researches and innovations are performed not only in research institutes and universities but also in many business and freelance researchers. However, many companies pay insufficient attention to intellectual property rights. Many ignore or even breach intellectual property rights. Due to a poor perception, many companies do not register the protection of intellectual property rights. When they witness other violate their rights, they urgently register for them. Unfortunately, not a few lose trade names and even go bankrupt.

 

In another aspect, while authorities call upon the public and the business community to respect intellectual property rights, a majority still violate intellectual property rights either unintentionally or purposefully. The concept of intellectual property culture is nicely defined by Japan. This is the culture of those who know how to protect their intellectual property and respect other rights. In many developed countries, most people do not use faked, pirated and non-copyrighted products and see them as a shame and an insult. However, this is far from the reality in Vietnam. Specifically, according to a recent market survey, a lot of people accept counterfeiting if it fits their budget and their needs.

 

This is partially resulted from the poor public awareness of Intellectual Property Law. The Intellectual Property Law has been widely disseminated in nearly 10 years (2005). Even, officials in charge of intellectual property rights cannot comprehend their professions. Another limitation is overlapping, inconsistent and insufficient regulations on the matter, leading to hard applicability. Sanctions on intellectual property violations are too light to frighten violators. Another reason stems from the fact that Vietnamese people accept cheap products regardless of source or origin.

 

To bring intellectual property rights and intellectual property culture to life, we need joint effort of the entire society, not only intellectual property authorities.