Although the expertise of the application form and the content of an application require a lot of time, but the waiting time for registration of intellectual property rights of 2 years as current is too long. The Ministry of Science and Technology is directing the National Office of Intellectual Property to urgently synchronize solutions to speed up the processing of applications, shorten the waiting time for registration.

Through the Receiving and Responding System to businesses ‘recommendations, the Club of the former members of the National Assembly proposed the Ministry of Science and Technology to strengthen the State management to support businesses in strategic orientation and long-term vision to encourage businesses to produce products with high added value and products for export.

NOIP needs to soon improve the registration of intellectual property rights with products and inventions. Currently, waiting time for registration of intellectual property rights of 2 years is  too long, causing troubles and disadvantages for businesses, especially in the context of the country entering the 4.0 technology era. This is an urgent requirement, especially during the period when Vietnam has signed and joined a series of Free Trade Agreements, including the new generation of Free Trade Agreements.

Regarding this issue, the Ministry of Science and Technology has the following opinions:

In recent years, the Ministry of Science and Technology has focused on building and completing legal policies focusing on supporting the development of science and technology of businesses such as: Encouraging the establishment of the S&T Development Fund of enterprises, creating sources force for enterprises to develop S&T; to form the National Science and Technology Development Fund, the National Technology Innovation Fund; implementing national programs to support enterprises to apply quality management tools, effectively protect and exploit intellectual property, research and apply S&T in production practices, improve quality, value of products and goods, increase competitiveness and increase the value of exported goods.

In 2019, following the instructions of the Party, the National Assembly, the Government and the Government’s Prime Minister on rapid and sustainable economic development, the Ministry of Science and Technology will continue to promote S&T activities towards enterprises.

Reviewing and restructuring national S&T programs towards considering enterprises as the center of the national innovation system is one of the key tasks of the Ministry of Science and Technology to promptly prepare for the period of 2021. -2025.

In 2019, following the instructions of the Party, the National Assembly, the Government and the Prime Minister on rapid and sustainable economic development, the Ministry of Science and Technology will continue to promote S&T activities towards enterprises.

Reviewing and restructuring national S&T programs towards considering enterprises as the center of the national innovation system is one of the key tasks of the Ministry of Science and Technology to promptly prepare for the period of 2021. -2025.

Submit to the Government proposals for restructuring and content development in the period 2021-2030 for the National Product Development Program, the National High-Tech Development Program, and the National Technology Innovation Program.

Focusing on completing national product criteria, developing national products according to the value chain; simplify procedures to attract national product registration businesses, especially pioneering enterprises of the economy; Focus on both national products that businesses need policies to support market access, penetrate, expand and master the domestic market, improve competitiveness to reach international markets with industries. has potential advantages; For the task of technology application and innovation, subjects are implementing enterprises, scientists, research institutes, universities, that playing the role of linking, consulting, and supporting ...

Will shorten waiting time for registration of intellectual property rights

According to the provisions of the Intellectual Property Law, the process of evaluating an application to establish industrial property rights (IP) includes 2 stages: Examination of the form of the application and examination of the content of the application.

(1) Examination of application form is the consideration of whether or not the application meets the formal requirements such as quantity requirements as well as the presentation of documents in the application file, fees ... to the application. may be duly accepted and documented on the date of the application. As a rule, the formality examination must be completed within 1 month from the date of application submission.

The application will be published on the IP Gazette within 2 months from the date of valid acceptance for related parties' comments.

(2) expertizing the contents of an IPR registration application is the assessment of whether the object stated in the application is in conformity with the protection standards or not. The Intellectual Property Law stipulates the time limit for substantive examination as follows:

- Invention application: 18 months from the date of publication or from the date of receipt of a request for substantive examination;

Trademark application: 9 months from the date of publication of the application;

- Industrial design application: 7 months from the date of publication;

- Geographical indication application: 6 months from the date of publication.

Content examination is a complicated process and requires a sufficient amount of time to look up information, compare evaluation with the objects in the application (patents, industrial designs, trademarks ... ) issued as well as other relevant documents that exist on databases in Vietnam and around the world.

Because the number of databases and data capacity are very large and diverse, information searching is very complicated and takes enough time. If there is not enough time, it will lead to poor quality assessment results, easily create complaints, causing damage to the owner of the IP registration application.

Although the examination of the form of an application and examination of the content of an application requires a lot of time, the current waiting time for registration of intellectual property rights of 2 years is too long. The Ministry of Science and Technology is directing the NOIP to urgently synchronize solutions to speed up the application processing speed, shorten the waiting time for registration, such as: Reviewing and simplifying the appraisal and recruitment process. employ more human resources, increase labor norms, improve the capacity of the information technology system, participate in rapid appraisal programs, buying access to specialized databases, ... at the same time elaborating the development of the National Intellectual Property Strategy to submit to the Government’s Prime Minister in June 2019, elaborating the Scheme on amending the Intellectual Property Law to conform with international commitments and meet the requirements of economic development. economy - society of the country.