Door Lock Products Trademarks Registration in Vietnam

In past, blocking doors to prevent crooks and thieves to enter homes, people used to use rudimentary or homemade door locks such as locks or latches. Nowadays, door locks with locking latches are developing. Recently, with the progress of science and technology, many modern and highly secure door locks have been launched such as magnetic card locks, fingerprints, electronics, passwords,… to respond to the needs of consumers. When choosing a door lock product, consumers are not only interested in design, shape, and usage, but they are also most concerned about the security of door locks. Therefore, consumers tend to choose door lock products with a clear trademark. To have a position in the market, the production and business establishments need to register for their door lock products an exclusive trademark.

Viet An Law would like to provide information about procedures and some notices when registering a trademark for door lock products at the Intellectual Property office.

First, customers need to classify their goods/products. 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, door lock products are classified under class 06: Metal products are not included in other classes.

Customers shall design a trademark sample for their door lock products to register. After receiving the trademark sample, Viet An Law will conduct a preliminary search for the trademark (within 01-day). However, to have the most accurate results on the distinction of the trademark, customers must perform a search at the Intellectual Property office (there is a fee), Viet An Law will represent customers for this procedure.

When having the strongest possibility of protection, Viet An Law will represent customers to perform trademark registration procedures at the Intellectual Property office. Procedures, orders for door lock products trademark registration in Vietnam will be carried out in the following:

Step 1: Submit the trademark registration application:

         Customers who have a demand for trademark registration can directly submit to the competent state agencies or can authorize through a representative of Viet An Law. When applying, customers need to pay the registration fee and take the receipts of this payment to submit attached with the dossier.

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

• A list of door lock products intended to register;
• A trademark registration declaration;
• A power of attorney Viet An Law to apply;
• 01 trademark sample with dimensions bigger than 3 x 3 cm and smaller than 8 x 8 cm;
• Receipts of fee payment.

Viet An Law represents customers to draft dossier and submit to the competent state agencies.

Step 2: Receive and consider the trademark registration:

         The trademark registration will be received by the competent state agencies if it meets the requirements and documents according to Clause 1 Article 108 Law on Intellectual Property.

         After receiving, the competent state agencies will consider the trademark registration through the following stages:

Stage 1: Form appraisal 

         The trademark registration will be appraised to evaluate the validity of the application including necessary documents, classification; stated objects classification; right to submit;…) If the application is valid, the competent state agencies in charge of industrial property will issue a notice to accept as a valid application or perform granting the protection title procedures and record on the gazette. In case the application is one of the cases in Clause 2 Article 109 Law on Intellectual Property, the competent state agencies will issue a notice to refuse (clearly state reason).

         The time to appraise is 01 months from the date of submitting.

Stage 2: Publish the application on the gazette

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

Stage 3: Content appraisal

         The accepted applicants will be appraised content. The purposes of this stage are to evaluate the possibility of granting the protection title and to determine the scope of corresponding protection. The time to appraise content is 06 months from the date of publishment. During the content appraisal stage, the competent state agencies in charge of the industrial property may request the applicant to explain about application content, provide information relating to the nature of stated objects.

Step 3: Grant the protection title and publish:

         The application which is not one of the cases to refuse to grant the protection title according to Clause 1, Clause 2 and Point b Clause 3 Article 117 Law on Intellectual Property and the applicant finishes paying the fee, the competent state agencies grant the protection title and record on National Register of Industrial Property.

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

Notices: Before applying, to have a stronger possibility of protection, customers can choose the search of Viet An Law including:

• A preliminary search: Viet An Law conduct a preliminary search within 01 days from the date of receiving the trademark intended to register.
• Search at the Intellectual Property office: Viet An Law will through the representative search for the trademark at the Intellectual Property office. This step is to evaluate the strongest possibility of registration.