Accounting Services Trademarks Registration in Vietnam

Accounting is a necessary and important activity for the business. For big companies, there is usually an accounting department. On the other hand, small and medium companies often do not set up this department, they use accounting services instead. Therefore, more and more accounting companies are established in the market. In order to gain prestige and attract customers, accounting companies should have an exclusive trademark name. And in order to protect that trademark, accounting companies should register that one at the state management agencies in charge of industrial property rights. 

         In order for customers to have the best understanding of the conditions and the procedures for accounting services trademarks registration in Viet Nam, Viet An Law would like to guide customers below:

         Customers need to classify goods/services intended to register for trademark registration. In a trademark registration dossier, the list of goods/services is one of the mandatory and important documents to determine the scope of trademark protection.

         According to the Nice Classification, accounting services are classified in class 36: business management, transaction management, and office operations.

         Customers design a trademark sample themselves to register. After receiving the sample, Viet An Law will conduct a preliminary search within 01 – 02 days. However, in order to get the most accurate results on the distinction of the trademark, customers need to conduct a search at the Intellectual Property rights (there is a fee). Viet An Law will represent for customers to perform this procedure.

Step 1: Submit the trademark registration application

         Customers demanding for registering can directly submit the application at state management agencies or can authorize the representative of Viet An Law to submit it. Customers need to pay registering fee and take the receipts of fee payments to submit attached with the dossier.

         Attached with the trademark registration application, customers need to provide these documents:

• A list of accounting services intended to register;
• A trademark registration declaration;
• A power of attorney Viet An Law to submit the dossier;
• 01 trademark sample (with dimensions bigger than 3 x 3 cm and smaller than 8 x 8 cm);
• Receipts of fee payments.

Viet An Law will represent for customers to draft the dossier and submit it to the state management agencies.

Step 2: Receive and process the trademark registration application

         The application will be received if it meets the requirements according to Clause 1 Article 108 Law on Intellectual Property 2005.

         After receiving the application, the state management agencies start to process the application through these stages:

Stage 1: Form appraisal 

         Period time to appraise form is 01 – 02 months from the date of submitting.

Stage 2: Publish the application

         The application accepted as a valid application will be published on the gazette within 02 – 03 months from the date of acceptance.

Stage 3: Content appraisal

         The period time to appraise content is 06 months from the date of publishment. During the content appraisal time, the state management agencies in charge of industrial property rights shall request for the applicant to explain the application content and provide the nature information of stated objects in the application.

Step 3: Grant the protection title and publish

         The time to grant the protection title is 01 – 02 months from the date of paying a granting fee.

         Notices: The time to protect a trademark is 10 years from the date of submitting the trademark registration application, the owners can renew (unlimited times), the extension period is 10 subsequent years.

         Before submitting a trademark registration application, to be more secure about the trademark intended to register, customers can choose Luat Viet An’s search including:

• Preliminary search: Viet An Law conducts a preliminary trademark search – this trademark is provided by customers. It takes about 1 day to conduct from the date of receiving the trademark.
• Search at the Intellectual Property office: the representative of Viet An Law will search at the Intellectual Property office. This step helps to evaluate the possibility of getting the highest protection of the trademark.