On June 16, 2022, the National Assembly of Vietnam ratified the amended Intellectual Property Law which puts the country on equal footing with the US, UK and other countries as far as legal frameworks for IP protection and enforcement go.
The amended IP Law likewise allows Vietnam to comply with international agreements and treaties. This include the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement.
Among the salient points ofthe amended IP Law are the following:
provides protection to sound marks; inclusion of bad faith as a ground for trademark opposition and cancellation; clarifies the definition of co-authorship; provides intermediary service providers 'liability for copyright and related rights' online infringements, with safe harbour for cased of mere conduit, caching, and hosting; introduction of "secret prior art" as a prior art document to be used for assessing the novelty of a patent application, among other amendments. Read more