The amended IP Law 2022 in Vietnam takes effect from January 1, 2023. New decrees and circulars will also be issued to provide detailed guidance on the provisions of the amended IP Law 2022. Therefore, document templates based on provisions of the amended IP Law 2022 or new decrees and circulars are also being revised and will be issued next time.
While waiting for the new templates to be officially issued, IP Vietnam issued Notice No. 333/TB-SHTT on February 3, 2023, to state which case continues to use the existing templates only with minor modifications and which case must wait for new templates. In particular:
As to applications/requests filed before January 1, 2023:
| The cases continue to use the existing templates | The cases must wait for the new templates |
| – Decision to accept/refuse to accept valid applications;
– Documents related to: + withdraw, amend, supplement, divide, convert applications, change recodal request; + invalidation, termination of the validity of the protection title; + amend, annuity, renewal, re-grant, grant duplicates; + registration/recordal of the contract of transfer of intellectual property rights; + industrial design applications in which the subject-matter is not the industrial design of the product being a part of a complex product or a part of a complex product but is visible when exploiting the complex product use. – Decision to refuse to issue a protection title, excluding the cases at item a.(i) and c.(ii) (see next column); – Decision to refuse to accept the protection of the internationally registered trademark, excluding the cases at item c.(ii) (see next column), – Decision to accept international registration trademark protection; – Documents relating to complaint settlement; – Decision on grant of a protection title. |
a. For industrial design applications: (i) Documents relating to industrial design applications of products that are parts of complex products that are invisible in the process of exploiting the complex product use filed from August 1, 2020, without a decision on grant/refusal; (ii) Notice of substantive examination result having the intention of partial rejection. b. For patent applications: (i) Notice of substantive examination result for patent applications relating to the regulations on patent security control; (ii) Notice of substantive examination result having the intention of partial rejection. c. For trademark applications: (i) Notice of substantive examination result for trademark applications filed under the national procedure having the partial rejection; (ii) Decision to refuse to grant protection title/refuse to accept the protection of internationally registered trademarks related to the provisions at Articles 74.2.e, 74.2.h, and 117.3.b of the amended IP Law. |
As to applications/requests filed from January 01, 2023
Temporarily suspending the release of documents related to such applications/requests to wait for the new document templates.
- Our comments:
The promulgation of new document templates is necessary to comply with the provisions of the amended legal documents, such as the IP Law 2022 and new degrees/circulars. However, waiting for such templates will slow down the application processing work of IP Vietnam until they are officially issued, especially notices of the substantive examination result for patent /industrial design /trademark applications. We hope Vietnamese authorities will soon publish new templates to facilitate the application processing, helping applicants quickly have intellectual property rights protected in Vietnam.
Kindly contact us via our emails at winco@winco.vn; patent@winco.com.vn or our phones at (84-24) 37 628 119/ 37 628 185 if you have any questions to receive the fastest and most accurate support from us.