Trademarks Registration for Butter products in Vietnam

Butter is fatty and creamy food that can be eaten every day and it is also often used as a baking ingredient. When choosing butter products, customers are always concerned about the quality, taste as well as safety of food hygiene. In general, they often believe in using products of well-known or reputable brands. To compete with other products in the market, companies producing this type of product should register trademarks for their products.

The first point is that trademark registration is only done by the right owner. According to the Law on Intellectual Property, subjects having a right to register a trademark include:

• Organizations, individuals have the right to register trademarks for the goods they produce or for the services they provide;
• Organizations, individuals that conduct legal commercial activities have the right to register trademarks for products they put on the market but are manufactured by others, provided that the producer does not use the mark for the product and does not object to such registration;
• Lawfully established collective organizations have the right to register collective marks for their members to use according to the regulations on the use of collective marks;
• Organizations with the function of controlling and certifying quality, characteristics, origin, or other criteria related to goods or services may register certification marks provided that they do not produce or trade-in these goods or services.

Preparing documents and drafting dossier include:

• A trademark sample with dimension bigger than 3 x 3 cm and smaller than 8 x 8 cm;
• A list of goods/services intended to register;
• A trademark registration declaration (if customers authorize Viet An Law to submit, this declaration will be signed by the representative of Viet An Law);
• A power of attorney;
• Receipts of fee payments.

Notices: Goods/services shall be classified according to the Nice Classification before submitting. Particularly, butter products are classified in class 29 including coconut butter, peanut butter, butter, cocoa butter for food, margarine…

Registration process:

• Submit the dossier at the Intellectual Property office;
• Form appraisal: 01 months from the date of submitting;
• Publish the trademark registration: 02 months from the date of receiving notice to accept as a valid application;
• Content appraisal: 09 – 12 months from the date of publishing;
• Grant the protection title: 02 – 03 months from the date of paying a granting fee.

A protection title is valid from the date of issue to the end of 10 years from the submitting date. It can be renewable for successive 10 years. If customers want to renew the validity period, customers must submit a renewal request to the Intellectual Property Office within 06 months before the date of the expiration. In case the application can not be submitted within the above time, customers can apply later but not later than 06 months from the date the protection title expires. At the same time, an important condition for renewal is that the owner must pay the full renewal fee.

For any information related to trademark registration in Vietnam for products and services, please contact Viet An Law for the most specific and detailed advice.