Trademark search in Vietnam

Research the possibility of trademark protection in Vietnam is always one of the top issues of concern for trademark owners around the world. Viet An Law, as a legal Intellectual Property Representative in Vietnam, would like to inform you about this issue in Vietnam today. If you are a law firm – IP agent wanting to apply for trademark registration for clients in Vietnam, please contact us for the most reasonable and competitive service fees with the best service quality.

Reasons to search trademarks in Vietnam

Make sure the trademarks are not duplicated

The trademarks searching will help to check whether the trademarks that individuals or businesses wishing to register is “identical or confusingly similar” with another registered trademark to provide a reasonable solution.

Avoid unnecessary wasted time and fees:

The number of trademark applications are submitted annually at the Intellectual Property office is a lot. Therefore, it is very important to choose a trademark that is not similar or identical to submitted those.

In case the search results are not satisfactory for the possibility of registration, this will help the applicant to avoid losing money to conduct the registration as well as waiting time for the Intellectual Propery office to consider the application (beside the application time to research and create a new trademark).

Check for accuracy:

After registration, the search will help individuals and enterprises to check whether the information in the granted trademark certificate is accurate with the data in the information system of the Intellectual Property office or not. If there is, customers can promptly correct it.

How to search for a trademark to register and a registered trademark in Vietnam

To check the protection of trademarks, customers can do it themselves by accessing the Intellectual Property office’s online industrial property database to search

Step 1: Visit the website of the Nation Office of Intellectual Property or the World Intellectual Property Ozganization through these following links:

http://wipopublish.ipvietnam.gov.vn/

Step 2: Enter the trademark information to search

The intended trademark or protected trademark can be found here.

For intended trademark to be protected, these are informations need to be notified:

• Trademark search: enter the trademark name
• Product/service group
• Image classification
• Name of product/service

For registered trademarks

Beside these informations mentioned above, it is necessary to add some of these information below, for the quicker search:

• Intellectual Property representative: the name of the representative who owns the trademark
• Application number
• Applicants
• Date of application
• License number: look up above the certificate of protection

Profound trademarks search

Profound search is a completely voluntary procedure for the applicants. However, it is advisable to proceed with this procedure as it is the first and important step in the preliminary assessment of whether a trademark should submit for protection or not?

However, trademarks registration search is for reference only and it is not a basis for granting or not granting title (partly related to priority rights when registering trademarks).

Trademark search application needs to be prepared

03 trademark samples with size bigger than 3 x 3 cm, smaller than 8 x 8 cm.

Procedures for intensive trademark search

Through Viet An Law from 01 – 03 working days.

Search for trademarks on the World Intellectual Property Ozganization (WIPO) website:

http://www.wipo.int

A pre-application search helps to search existing trademarks is the first step to take. If the trademark infringles the intellectual property rights of others or violates national laws, the trademark may be denied for registration.

Before submitting an international registration through the Madrid system, it is advisable to search for identical or similar trademarks that already exist (or are pending) in the target market.

Use this guide to learn how to search WIPO’s Global Brand Database before submitting a trademark application and how to search the trademarks registration of national and regional trademarks.

WIPO’s global datebase allows you to look up registered trademarks under the Madrid system – Name of registered origin under the Lisbon system and protected symbols according to Article 6ter of the Paris Convention. Several national trademark databases are also integrated in this database . Through this facility is possible:

• Perform a query for multiple data sources at the same time;
• Learn about identical or similar word trademarks through many different lookup features such as “true-flase”, similar, original, phonetic and “near similar” lookup;
• Search for identical or similar trademarks by using the image lookup function.

Look up for the trademark before submitting the application if it finds an intermediate or similar trademark. It is better to find out that a trademark is identical or similar before an application if submitted than after submitting. This information will allow the applicants to make the approriate decision. It is important to identify identical or similar trademarks.

• Whether to be registered for identical or related goods or services or not;
• Whether the subject of a submitted application or a valid registration or not.

If the trademark is identical or similar but it is registered for unrelated goods/services, you can decide to continue the registration. Likewise, if a trademark that was subject of the application has been denied or the registration has expired, you can also continue the registration process.

To help businesses and individuals establish trademark rights for their goods and services before appearing in the market in the quickest and most professional way. Viet An Law guides the process of searching and registering trademarks for customers’ goods and services.

For any information related to do the trademark search and trademark registration & Vietnam Trademark Renewal services for products and services, please contact Viet An Law – Vietnam Intellectual Property Agent for the most specific and detailed advice