One of the new highlights of the revised Vietnamese Law on Intellectual Property in 2022 is the provision relating to third party observation regarding the Trademark Registration Certificate according to the provisions of Article 112 and Article 112a about third party observations related to objection to trademark registration applications in particular and industrial property rights in general.
This new regulation is extremely important in establishing a legal basis related to third parties’ opinions about trademark registration applications under expertise in Vietnam, including:
The fundamental difference between the two provisions above is the period for third party observation. If you want to file an objection to grant a trademark protection title, you must file within 05 months from the date of the trademark application is published in the Industrial Property Official Gazette.
When you discover that a third party trademark conflicts with your pre-registered trademark but the above 05 months time limit for an objection has passed, you still have the right to submit your observation to the NOIP to consider granting or not granting a trademark protection title through the procedure of “Third party observation on granting a protection title” from the date of the trademark application is published to the date of the NOIP issues a decision to grant a protection title to the trademark applying for registration.
| Criteria | Third party observation
(Article 112) |
Objection
(Article 112a) |
| Fee | No fees charged | Fees must be paid |
| Duration | Third party observation may be submitted during the expertise of the trademark, provided that such observation must be submitted before the NOIP issues a decision on granting the Trademark Registration Certificate. | Objections are only allowed to be filed within 05 months from the date of publication of the trademark registration application and before the date of issuing the decision to grant the Trademark Registration Certificate. |
| Procedure | The NOIP only accepts the third party observation, but may not respond or has to establish its procedures to deal with the third party observation. | The NOIP accepts oppsitions, issues the number of objections, and must establish a mechanism, and procedures for handling objections as an independent procedure (similar to the procedure for terminate, cancel, or appeal). |
| Nature | It is only a source of reference information for the processing of handling the industrial property registration application (observations are a source of reference only). | It is a separate, independent procedure, similar to other procedures such as termination, invalidation, or appeal. |
The new regulation specifically regarding third party observation has contributed to the distinction between the objection procedure and third party observation to solve problems in applying the process to handle those two types of opinions. Accordingly, the long period for receiving third party observations has been overcome, leading to a prolonged application handling process, not to mention the case that the third party abused this procedure to interfere with the issuance of the Trademark Registration Certificate.
Clients wishing to conduct the procedure for third party observation regarding the Trademark Registration Certificate, please contact Viet An Law Firm for the fastest support at the most reasonable cost!
