Enforcement of intellectual property rights: Coordination is not yet effective

Many violative goods were seized by Customs

According to the Ministry of Science and Technology, since the Law on Intellectual Property and coordinated program of action to prevent and combat IPR infringement phase II (2012-2015, known as Program 168 Phase II) was signed, inspection, examination and handling of IPR infringements has made positive changes from the central to local levels. Nationwide, inspection and examination of the manufacturing and trafficking of commodities also has been deployed synchronously by functional forces. In particular, at the border, control activities at the border gate have been deployed by Customs forces with close collaboration with other functional forces.

However, coordination between executing forces in the prevention and handling of violations related to IPR has not yet achieved the desired result. Meanwhile, dissemination of the law was unfulfilled synchronously, and has not really met the requirement to raise awareness for the business community to protect their own IP rights and respect IP rights of other organizations and individuals. At the same time the inspection, examination and coordination in handling IPR infringements between management agencies and enforcement agencies has not been handled promptly or efficiently.

According to the experts, the Vietnam legal system on IPR enforcement is relatively complete, modern and consistent with the conditions and the Vietnam situation in the context of international economic integration. In which, there is the Civil Procedure Code, the Criminal Code, Law on Intellectual Property, Competition Law, Law on Handling of Administrative Violations and many relevant legal documents. Besides, there are many different agencies which have the competence to handle the infringement of IP rights such as the Inspector of Science and Technology, Market Management, Customs, Police, Courts and People's Committees of provinces and cities; the processing is performed by means of civil, administrative, criminal and border control.

However, the work of handling IPR violations in Vietnam is more complicated. Mr. Le Ngoc Lam, Deputy Director of Intellectual Property Department admitted, IP law enforcement in Vietnam is executed mainly by the administrative agency instead of the usual courts like many countries around the world. In fact, the coordination among IPR enforcement agencies is also at a single level, case by case and not systemic and frequently with the measures and targets which have been defined for all system. Therefore, there still arises the overlapping issues between the operating system and judiciary, and difficulties in coordination among enforcement agencies in dealing with the infringement.

According to the statistics presented at the Summarizing Conference of Program168 Phase II by the Ministry of Science and Technology held recently, over 4 years administrative penalties have only totalled nearly 97 billion vnd. This figure shows that the effectiveness is not commensurate with the action plan of 9 ministries. Talking about the existence of this, representatives of the Ministry of Science and Technology admitted, update mechanisms, and information exchange between agencies was not timely, making it difficult for implementing. Despite the remaining limitations, the effectiveness of coordination of the ministries and agencies in preventing and combating IPR infringement is noteworthy, affirmed Vietnam's efforts in the implementation of international commitments on intellectual property when paticipated in WTO and to prepare the necessary conditions when the TPP Agreement takes effect.With the similar opinion, the representatives of the General Department of Customs emphasized the role of right holders in collaboration with enforcement agencies to prevent IPR infringement has not been promoted. Mr. Nguyen Van Thuy, the Head of IPR Protection Enforcement Unit, Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department, General Department of Customs said that IPR infringements are very sophisticated and diverse. Not only inexpensive items but even luxury items of high value also were violated and enforcement agencies were sometimes confused in distinguishing real from fake. Hence, to combat IPR infringements, firstly there is a need for effort from enterprises and assurance agencies and enforcement agencies. Because no one knows the product better than the rights holder. The sharing of information by rights holders would help Customs and other enforcement agencies to implement the tasks and help the authorities to promptly detect, arrest and handle IPR violations, but in Vietnam this coordination is deficient.

For the coordination between the functional forces in IPR enforcement to be effective, firstly there must be a tight, complete legal base, that meets the requirements of increasing the protection and enforcement of IP rights in the new generation of Free Trade Agreements (such as Vietnam - EU, TPP), Vietnam needs to review, amend and supplement legal documents on the protection of intellectual property patents, trademarks, geographical indications, trade secrets, copyright, parallel imports and especially improve and enhance the effectiveness of IPR enforcement system. With those requests, the Government of Vietnam and the entire system of protection and enforcement of IPR requires fundamental changes to further improve efficiency, and to meet the requirements of increasing economic integration in Vietnam, said representatives of the Ministry of Science and Technology.