Hotels Trademarks Registration in Vietnam

Hotel is a popular accommodation business in the world, ensuring quality and necessary amenities for accommodation business, meeting several requirements for relaxation, dining, entertainment, and other services during time guests stay at hotels, suitable for movies, trip purposes. Currently, the travel demand has increased a lot, along with that demand, hotels are built and operated more and more. To get the reputation and trust from customers, hotels must have their brand. Also, when having exclusive trademarks, hotels can post their information on hotel pages to increase the chance to join the market. 

Therefore, demand for trademark registration for hotels is more and more, customers can refer to the procedures for trademark registration for hotels that Viet An Law provides below.

 To determine the scope of protection for a trademark, we must first make a group classification of trademark registration services in the Nice Classification of trademark registration. Accordingly, hotel services are under group 43: Temporary accommodation.

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 hotels services 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 hotels services 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.

Viet An Law provides legal services for trademark registration:

• Advice on procedures and conditions for trademark registration;
• Advise on the strongest possibility to register;
• A preliminary search on trademark registration;
• Search for the trademark at the Intellectual Property office – independent cost;
• Represent for customers in the whole process;
• Draft the registration dossier;
• Submit and track the process, appraisal at the Intellectual Property office;
• Represent customers in the process and discuss with the Intellectual Property office about trademark registration in Vietnam