Growing numbers of collective marks are protected in Vietnam
In Vietnam, there are many regions have famous
agricultural products. However, the farmers do not make a good profit on
growing such agricultural products as have not got exclusive trademarks. In
recent years, local authorities have encouraged to register geographical
indications for their agricultural products. (On June 25, 2014, Binh Duong and
Binh Thuan provinces announced that collective trademarks "Lai Thieu
Mangosteen", "Loc Ninh Pepper" are protected). In practice, a
lot of collective trademark applications have been refused by the National Office
of Intellectual Property (the NOIP) due to shortcoming of formality such as lacking
a permission to use the geographical indication from the local authority or wrong
classification of goods in the applied-application ect. In Nghe An province, 2/8 collective trademark
applications were granted certificate for agricultural products, in which Pham
& Associates acted on behalf of Quynh Di Farmers Association for its products
of fish sauce, shrimp, and processed seafood. On June 26, 2014, the NOIP, Food &
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the French Development
Agency announced a project of $2 million funding four countries of Mekong river
region including Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam in three years to develop
geographical indications for agricultural products. Hopefully with the help of AFD, along with the professional
services of Pham & Associates, there are more and more geographical
indications in the whole country will be protected. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ About
Pham & Associates Pham & Associates is an intellectual
property law firm in Vietnam. We provide counsel and representation in every
area of patents, trademarks, copyrights, enforcement of intellectual property
rights as well as their representation in arbitration and litigation
proceedings … For further information about our organization
and services, please visit our website: www.pham.com.vn