On June 16, 2022, Vietnam’s National Assembly ratified the latest amendment of the country’s Intellectual Property Law, which will take effect on January 1, 2023 (except for the provisions on sound marks, which took retroactive effect on January 14, 2022, and the provisions on test data protection for agrochemicals, which will come into force on January 14, 2024).
For the amended IP Law to be enforced consistently and efficiently, the government is actively working to issue a decree guiding the implementation of the amended IP Law (the “new decree”). The new decree, after being ratified, will also take effect on January 1, 2023, replacing Decree No. 103/2006/ND-CP and Decree No. 105/2006/ND-CP, two decrees issued in 2006 to guide the previous IP Law of 2005.
Due to the urgency of promulgating a legislative document conforming with the amended IP Law when it takes effect, the government will formulate and promulgate the new decree under a simplified procedure.
The drafting agency circulated the first draft of the new decree to seek opinions from concerned parties on October 10, 2022. The new decree is seen as comprehensive guidance to key aspects of the IP Law, including the establishment and enforcement of industrial property rights, IP representation, measures to promote IP activities, IP-related export and import control; IP assessment, and state management of intellectual property.
The new decree generally consolidates provisions of the two previous decrees without many changes. The highlight of the new decree is some new provisions on controlling security for patents and secret patents (Article 14); Hague applications for industrial designs (Articles 22, 23, 24) and cancellation/invalidation of Hague registrations for industrial designs (Article 32.5); and compensation for patent owners (Article 43).
The new decree is currently being reviewed by the drafting agency before submission for appraisal and validation, and is expected to be ratified before the end of 2022.
