On January 16, 2009, the Appeals Court of the Supreme People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City overturned a ruling of a lower court in a trademark cancellation case that has drawn the attention of many IP practitioners and scholars in Vietnam. In the case, a distributor’s trademark registration was cancelled on the basis that the distributor did not have a right to register the manufacturer’s trademark in its own name, even if the manufacturer has granted permission to do so.