Cooking Oil Products Trademarks Registration in Vietnam

Eating is essential to maintain human life. To cook delicious dishes, it takes many ingredients, one of which is cooking oil. Currently, on the market, many types of cooking oil are widely sold, both quality oil and dirty oil. When choosing a cooking oil, consumers often choose cooking oils with clear brands and origins. Therefore, to gain the trust and choice of customers, enterprises trading in cooking oil products should register for their cooking oil products with an exclusive brand name (trademark).

For a business to have the best services of procedures as well as notes when registering an exclusive trademark with the management agency of intellectual property rights, Viet An Laws would like to advise customers on the steps and notes when registering exclusive trademarks for cooking oil products are as follows:

First, customers need to classify trademark registration in Vietnam for their service products. In a trademark registration dossier, the list of goods and services is one of the mandatory and important documents to determine the scope of trademark protection.

According to the Nice Classification, cooking oil products are classified into class 29: Vegetable Oil and Fats.

Customers will design their trademark and sent it to Viet An Law, Viet An Law will conduct a free preliminary search. However, to have the strongest possibility to register, customers should search at the Intellectual Property office (there is a fee).

Procedures for cooking oil products trademarks registration in Vietnam include:

Step 1: Apply:

         Individuals, enterprises requesting trademark registration may themselves apply to the competent state agencies or can authorize the representative of Viet An Law to submit. When applying, customers pay the registration fees and take the receipts of fee payment. These receipts will be submitted attach with the dossier.

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

• A list of cooking oil products intended to register;
• A trademark registration declaration;
• A power of attorney Viet An Law to submit the dossier;
• 01 trademark sample (not smaller than 3 x 3 cm, not bigger than 8 x 8 cm);
• Receipts of fee payments.

Step 2: Receive and settle the trademark registration application

         The trademark registration application shall be received by the state management agencies in charge of industrial property rights if it meets the requirements according to the provisions of Clause 1 Article 108 of the Law on Intellectual Property.

         After receiving, the competent state agencies continue to settle the application through these stages:

Stage 1: Form appraisal

         The form application will be appraised to assess the validity of the application (necessary documents, classification, stated object classification, rights to apply…) It takes about 01 – 02 months to appraise from the date of submitting.

Stage 2: Publish the application

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

Stage 3: Content appraisal

         The content application will be appraised. The purpose of this stage is to assess the strongest possibility to grant the protection title and assess the scope of protection. The time to appraise content is 06 months from the date of publishment. During the content appraisal, the state management agencies in charge of industrial property rights shall request the applicant to explain the content, provide information on the stated objects.

Step 3: Grant the protection title and publish 

         The trademark registration applications are not the cases that refuse to grant the protection title according to Clause 1, 2 and Point b Clause 3 Article 117 Law on Intellectual Property and the applicant pays the fee, the state management agencies in charge of industrial property rights shall grant the protection title and publish on National Register of Industrial Property.

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

Notices: The term of trademark protection is 10 years from the submitting date and can be extended an unlimited number of times at the end of the protection term. Before the expiration of the 06-month protection period, customers must apply for the renewal and pay the renewal fee to the Intellectual Property Office if customers still want to continue using the trademark.

         Before submitting the trademark registration, to have the strongest possibility of trademark intended to register, customers can use the search service of Viet An Law:

• Preliminary search: Viet An Law conduct a preliminary search within 01-day from the date of receiving trademarks intended to register.
• Search at the Intellectual Property office: Viet An Law shall through the representative to search trademark at the Intellectual Property office. This step will help to consider the strongest possibility to protect the trademark.