Trademark registration service

Trademark registration service is a specific service provided by companies with the function of Industrial Property Representative. Viet An Law Firm is one of the reputable Industrial Property Representatives with nearly 20 years of experience and will provide trademark registration service for clients in the most effective way.

What is trademark registration?

Registering trademarks for products and goods is a procedure that individuals and organizations need to carry out to establish trademark rights for products and goods. The form of recognition of rights to a trademark is a Trademark Registration Certificate.

Conditions for providing trademark registration services

• Must be an Industrial Property Representative organization licensed by the Vietnam Intellectual Property Department. Accordingly, companies that are law firms but do not have the function of representing intellectual property are also not allowed to consult or provide trademark registration services.
• To distinguish a company with the function of providing trademark registration services is very simple: If the consulting company has a representative legally, the client will only need to sign a Power of Attorney for the entire process with the National Office of Intellectual Property will be signed by the representative. Clients only receive the final results without having to sign any documents other than a Power of Attorney.
• Viet An Law Firm is an Industrial Property Representative organization with representative code 083 according to Decision No. 1448/QD – SHTT issued in 2007 by the Vietnamese National Office of Intellectual Property.

Why is it necessary to choose companies with the function of representing intellectual property and providing trademark registration services?

• The client should not choose consulting companies that do not have the function of representing industrial property to consult on trademark registration for the client. Those units do not have the personnel to ensure professional practice conditions and expertise to provide the best client service.
• Because they do not have a representative function, these companies will not be able to sign on behalf of clients on trademark registration applications, so they will not have the status to transact with the National Office of Intellectual Property. Therefore, applications, official dispatches, and documents dealing with the National Office of Intellectual Property are likely to be lost or even refused to carry out further procedures due to a lack of response according to regulations.
• When an application is rejected for unwarranted reasons, the service provider will not have the knowledge to respond and protect the legitimate rights and interests of the client.

Documents clients need to provide when using trademark registration services in Vietnam

• Trademark sample: larger than 3x3cm and smaller than 8x8cm;
• Power of Attorney according to the Representative’s form;
• List of registered trademark products.
• Trademark registration service fee (including fees paid to state agencies).
• The remaining work will be performed by the Intellectual Property Representative under the client’s authorization to work with the National Office of Intellectual Property in Vietnam.

Note when registering a trademark for the trademark owner in Vietnam

Because this is a registration procedure to establish trademark rights according to the law, the application owner needs to clearly understand the relevant regulations to avoid not meeting protection standards or filing an application. Failure to comply with regulations leads to actual rights not being established. Some notes include:

It is necessary to conduct a trademark search before registration

A trademark search is an optional procedure, but to ensure the effectiveness of application processing, the trademark application owner should conduct a search first to determine the protectability of the trademark. on absolute and relative grounds according to law.

Trademark search requires high expertise and skills, so application owners should choose reputable units to perform this stage. Viet An Law Intellectual Property Representative is a unit that can help clients perform trademark searches quickly and most effectively. As a result of the search service, the client will receive a preliminary search and profound search notice to identify identical or similar signs in the intended trademark that are likely to be refused registration. It helps clients easily consider and choose reasonable solutions according to the proposals given by Viet An Law’s intellectual property experts.

To perform a trademark search, clients only need to provide Viet An Law:

• Trademark sample;
• List of products and services that need to be searched and registered.

It is necessary to classify good and service groups accurately

Classifying groups of goods and services associated with a trademark is the basis for establishing the scope of trademark protection when doing business in the market. Vietnam is currently classified according to the latest version of the International NICE Classification (version 11-2023). With the groups of goods and services provided, clients should choose a reputable Industrial Property representative to classify them correctly according to regulations. In case of misclassification, the National Office of Intellectual Property may force the application owner to pay a classification fee (due to misclassification) to continue processing the application.

Note about priority

Vietnam has joined the Paris Convention, and based on this mechanism, basic applications filed in a member state of the Convention within 6 months will enjoy priority registration in any other member state if has a claim for entitlement recorded in the trademark registration dossier in that country.

The right of priority allows applicants the right to oppose comparable reference marks according to the regulations in the country of registration, such as marks identical or similar to marks in a previously filed trademark application but still later than the filing date recorded in the basic application claiming priority, the later-filed mark has priority right to be registered according to the provisions of the Paris Convention. This provision ensures that trademark rights arising under the first-to-file principle are applied within a system of countries of the convention and are not limited to the territory of each member country.

Thus, in case a client has filed a basic application in another country and filed a trademark registration in another country within 6 months, the client needs to pay attention to this document in the registration application to ensure priority when registering a trademark.

Trademark registration period

The total time for trademark registration according to law is about 12 – 18 months from the date of acceptance of a valid application (not including the time to process an application with objections from a third party). However, in reality, this time can also be extended from 3 to 6 months due to the overload of trademark registration applications at the National Office of Intellectual Property.

Process of providing trademark registration service of Viet An Law Firm

With nearly 20 trademark registration service providers in Vietnam and abroad, Viet An Law Firm is proud to be an Intellectual Property Representative Organization in Vietnam with a large and stable number of trademark registration applications in Vietnam. With the trust and confidence of domestic and foreign clients, we always strive to provide the fastest and best trademark registration services at the most reasonable cost!

If clients need to register a trademark in Vietnam or other countries, please contact Viet An Law for direct and effective support.