VCCI – IP has a strong and experienced team of design attorneys and staff providing clients with the excellent legal services and supports to obtain industrial design rights in Vietnam, including but not limited to the followings:
- Conducting searches for prior registered/applied industrial designs with the assessment of the registrability or potential conflicting with the industrial design to be applied;
- Providing legal advices and representing for filing and prosecuting industrial design applications, including response to/appeal against office actions in the course of prosecution of industrial design applications;
- Providing legal advices and representing for filing industrial design applications foreign countries;
- Drafting and translating the description of industrial design to be applied;
- Providing legal advices and representing for recordal of license/assignment of industrial designs and technology transfer;
- Providing legal advices and representing for recordal of changes in industrial design applications and/or Patent for industrial design;
- Providing legal advices on industrial design validity, monitoring and payment for industrial design renewal;
- Conducting investigation relating to industrial design infringement;
- Providing legal advices and representing for settlement of appeals, disputes, infringement actions of registered industrial designs;
- Other related services.
Subject matter of industrial design protection
In Vietnam, subject matter of the legal protection of industrial designs is the outer appearance of an article or a product. An industrial design may be in the form of two or three-dimensional shape, in the form of a product or a set of products. An industrial design will be eligible for protection given that it meets the following criteria:
- worldwide novelty;
- creativity;
- industrial applicability;
The subject matter which meets the criteria protection will be granted Patent for Industrial Design. The Patent for Industrial Design is effective from granting date and valid until the expiry date of 5 years from the date of filing. The Patent for Industrial Design may be renewed for two consecutive periods of 5 years. Thus, the maximum validity term of a registered industrial design is 15 years.
Subject matters excluded from industrial design protection
The following subject matters shall not be protected as industrial designs:
- Appearance of a product that is dictated by its technical features of the product;
- Appearance of a civil or an industrial construction work;
- Appearance of a product which is invisible during the use of the product.
Besides, the outer appearance of product, which is in contrary to the social and morality standards and harms the community interest, damages to the security-national defence are excluded from industrial design protection in Vietnam. The design of products, which bears the portrait of leaders, the emblems of states, the state organs, the state and foreign organizations without permission of the competent authorities are not protectable.
Time limit for filing an industrial design application
Vietnam is a member of Paris Convention, the design applications claiming convention priority must be filed in Vietnam within 6 months from the earliest filing date;
Industrial design filing procedures
Download our Individual Power of Attorney form