Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam has carried out investigations to apply anti-dumping measures against some commodities imported into Vietnam.

The law of Vietnam also has a number of law documents governing this matter in detail. Specifically, ordinance No. 20/2004/PL-UBTVQH11 issued on April 29th, 2004 of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly and the Decree No. 90/2005/ND-CP issued on July 11th, 2005 governs the anti-dumping matters and the regulations on the implementation of several articles of the ordinance on anti-dumping of goods imported to Vietnam.

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In terms of content, ordinance 20/2004 regulating the anti-dumping measures; procedures, contents of investigation for application and the application of such measures against dumped goods imported into Vietnam. Decree 90/2005 regulating the implementation of some articles of the Ordinance 20/2004 on the anti-dumping investigation agency, the Council that handling anti-dumping cases; procedures, contents of investigation and the application of anti-dumping measures to goods imported into Vietnam.

On December 24th, 2015, Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam has received written request from 4 Vietnam companies about applying anti-dumping measures to galvanized steel products imported into Vietnam from People’s Republic of China (including Hong Kong) and South Korea.

The requesting parties (4 Vietnam companies) believe that quantity and prices of the product under investigation and other factors have created negative impact their goods consumption, leaded to negative effects on production activities; for example, domestic goods’ market share has decreased, loss ratio has increased, price of domestic products has fell and inventory has risen… Moreover, increasing import products brings about damage to domestic industry. Hence, an investigation has been implemented by the investigation agency, which is the Vietnam Competition Authority (VCA), under the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The VCA will publicly hold a consultation with related parties before finishing the investigation stage. The Vietnam Ministry of Industry and Trade will apply anti-dumping tax which comes into effect retroactively in order to prevent the considerable increase of dumping goods in Vietnam that have caused damages to the domestic industry.

According to the Law on Intellectual Property in Vietnam, the subject matter of industrial property rights shall comprise inventions, industrial designs, designs of semi-conducting closed circuits, trade secrets, marks, trade names and geographical indications.

Rights to an invention, industrial design, layout design, mark shall be established on the basis of a decision of Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam to grant a protection title in Vietnam or the recognition of international registration pursuant to an international treaty of which Vietnam is a member. The remaining being: (i) rights to trade name shall be established on the basis of lawful use thereof; (ii) rights to a trade secret shall be established on the basis of lawful acquirement of the trade secret and maintaining confidentiality thereof.

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How are term and scope of protection of the right to an arising object on the basis of granting of a protection title?

Firstly, protection titles shall be valid throughout the entire territory of Vietnam. This provision means the validity of title is only territorial. It means titiles granted by any country will only take effect within its territory and are not accepted in other countries or other titles granted by Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam will take effect throughout the entire territory of Vietnam.

Secondly, regarding each industrial property object, validity of protection titles are different. Such as validity of the invention patent is 20 years from the grant date but the timeline to calculate until the end of 20 protection years is filing date. Regarding utility solution patent, the validity shall be 10 years and the calculation until the end of 10 years is same as calculation of invention patent. It should be noted that validity of invention patent and utility solution patent may not be extended. However, industrial design patent, certificate of registered mark may be extended. In particular: (i) industrial design patent shall be shall be valid from the grant date until the end of five years after the filing date and may be extended consecutively with each time of 5 years. Therefore, industrial design patent may be extended up to 15 years; (ii) certificate of registered mark shall be valid from the grant date until the end of ten years after the filing date. However, this object has a special feature that it is able to extend repeatedly and consecutively the validity with each time of 10 years. Therefore, this object may be extended validity forever.

Regarding certificate of registered geographical indication, it shall have indefinite validity starting from the grant date because of its characteristic of sign used to identify a product as originating from a specific region, locality, territory or country. Reputation of products bearing a geographical indication shall be determined by graphical conditions, including natural factors (climatic, hydrological, geological, topographical and ecological factors and other natural conditions); Human factors (skills and expertise of producers, and traditional production processes of localities…).

In addition, one of objects having specific validity is certificate of registered design of semi-conducting closed circuits. Certificate shall be valid from the grant date until the earliest date among the following: (i) the end of ten years after the filing date; (ii) the end of ten years after the date the layout design was first commercially exploited anywhere in the world by a persons with the registration right or his or her licensee; (iii) the end of fifteen years after the date of creation of the layout design.

Having said that, when the owner of industrial property object is granted protection title, it should be noted at time of expiration of title to apply for the extension in order to guarantee interests as well as benefits that industrial property objects brings. The owner could contact IP department of ANT Lawyers and patent, trademark and other IP attorney will be assisting the client to review the matters and provide relevant advice.

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