Development and improvement of industrial property legal framework

When the National Office of Inventions was established, the only legal document related to industrial property was the "Regulations on innovations for technical improvement, production rationalization and inventions" issued together with Decree No 31-CP of 23 January 1981 by the Government.

The priority target set by the National Office of Inventions was to draft legislation, which would serve as the legal group for the protection of other industrial property subject matters; the immediate task then was to draft legislation on the protection of trademarks. As a result, Decree No 197/HDBT and the "Regulations on trademarks" were promulgated on 14 December 1982 by the Government. On 18 October 1983 the Chairman of the Sate Committee of Science and Technology enacted Circular No 125/SC for guiding the implementation of this Regulations. Thus, by the end of 1983, the protection of two most important subject matters of industrial property were stipulated in two Decree of the Government.

In order to further protect other subject matters of industrial property, from 1986 the National Office of Inventions drafted and submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval the following pieces of legislation:

• Decree No 85-HDBT of 13 May 1988 issued together with "Regulations on Industrial Designs".
• Decree No 200/HDBT of 28 December 1988 issued together with "Regulations on Utility Solutions";
• Decree No 201/HDBT of 28 December 1988 issued together with "Regulations on the Licensing of inventions, utility solution, industrial designs, trademarks and know-how" (referred to as "Regulations on Licensing")

By the end of 1988, four most important subject matters of industrial property were protected in Vietnam based on separate Decrees issued by the Government. According to these Decrees, measures for the protection of industrial property were mainly of administrative nature; the principles of a centrally planned economy based on the pattern of socialist system under two main forms of protection which were: inventor certificate and exclusive patent on inventions. The use of the inventor certificate (appropriate form of protection for a centrally planned economy) was encouraged, whereas the exclusive patents for inventions were mainly granted to foreigners.

At that time the "Doi Moi" reform policy was implemented in the country. With a view to making the industrial property activities comply with the new economic mechanism and to enhancing the legal status of industrial property legislation, the National Office of Inventions made a proposal to and in cooperation with the National Assembly and other relevant agencies to draft the Ordinance on the Protection of industrial property which was approved on 28 January 1989 by the State Council and on 11 February 1989 the State Council issued Decision No 13LCT/HDNN8 on the publicizing of the Ordinance. For the first time, the concept "industrial property" was used in a legal document in the country. Apart from the four types of industrial property (invention, utility solution, industrial design, and trademark) which were protected according to separate Decrees of the Government, the Ordinance also stipulated the protection of appellations of origin with a view to promoting the creation of original products with the origin from specific areas, regions or localities in the country.