LV Thạc sĩ_Vietnam trademark and developmental solutions in the international economic integration

Originating from the interest in viewing the importance andindispensability of trademark and matter of building, developing andprotecting Vietnam trademark in the global markets, the Gra

In 1990, having made a survey of 50 leading advertising firms in the

US on the problems of fake image of products spreading over the country,Marketing Science Institute of the United States of America received theanswers on what it cared for best : “Trademark is the first Trademark is thebest property of business Being a market leader is better than owning afactory and the only way to do this is owning the trademarks which can takeover the markets”

The fact lies in that public opinion in Vietnam, recently, has beeninterested in building trademark and in finding a way in developing andprotecting the trademark that has been constantly cultivated to gainreputation in the fierce competitiveness between “small and big fish” instreamline of business racing Truly, Vietnamese trademark is stolen, anddisputed in the markets It is because that knowledge of many people, evenbusinessmen on trademark building, trademark development and trademarkprotection as well remain restricted, sometimes very poor It’s clear that theVietnamese businesses haven’t had a comprehensive look on trademark

In the trend of the international economic integration and in thecontext of spreading overwhelming competitiveness seen nationally andglobally between corporation and corporation, between company andcompany etc on launching products of all kinds in the markets, it’s hightime the Vietnamese businessmen have paid due attention to firmly andsteadily building the name of ourselves with prestige and trustworthy, and to

developing and protecting the trademarks, especially exporting productssatisfactorily.

By a “seeing and believing” attitude, I wish to go in-depth study of

the theme: “Vietnam Trademark and Developmental Solutions in the International Economic Integration”, which was suggested and

supervisored by Mr TrÇn Anh Th¬, vice Dean of the Faculty of English,Hanoi School of Business & Technology

Originating from the interest in viewing the importance andindispensability of trademark and matter of building, developing andprotecting Vietnam trademark in the global markets, the GraduationAssignment particularly focuses on registering and protecting trademark inVietnam as the troubles clearly seen, that the Vietnamese businesses are nowencountering

The GA includes 3 chapters with contents as follows:

● Chapter I : Trademark and Requirements for Building andDeveloping

● Chapter II : Vietnam’s Regulations issued on Trademark andits Development

● Chapter III : Some Proposals to Building and Protecting VietnamTrademark

While every endeavour has been made, it has not been possible to avoidshortcomings, errors and deficiencies The author and supervisor as well wouldwelcome any contribution to the perfect of the GA.

Chapter I

Trademark and Requirements

for Building and Developing

I Trademark and Process of Building and Developing

1 Trademark

1.1 Brand - Trademark - Strong Trademark

Many people often confuse between brand and trademark It can be

said that SONY, MERCEDES, FORD, COCA-COLA are trademarks … but

“Vietnam rice” is not So what is the difference?

First is concept of trademark

“Trademark comprises a name, word, phrase, logo, image, term, sign,symbol, design, or the elements combined, used by manufacturers ofmerchants to identify their own goods and distinguish them from goods orsold by competitors” A trademark is a type of industrial property which isdistinct from other forms of intellectual property

In Marketing’s view, there is a large distance between brands,

trademarks and strong trademark

- A brand only creates a fixed awareness of products,discriminates them from their names, and increases the business’s turnover

- Speaking of trademark, it is an ensuring of quality, delivery anddelivery process Trademark brings loyalty of customer from products andservices of business

- A strong trademark is a discrimination of quality and services,this creates characteristics for a product When they speak of that trademark,they may be image and have image of the product in Trademark also createsthe strength for business in different activities.

Therefore, the difference between brand and trademark lies insubconsciousness of customer A name becomes a trademark whenconsumers think about products, attributions, and visible or invisibleadvantages that they received from those products HONDA really is astrong trademark because its products are endurable, economic fuel andcustomers have peace of mind when using its products

Up to now, we could conclude that Trademark is brand that customersaccept and believe etc In other way, trademark is brand that creates prestige

1.2 Meaning Levels of a Trademark

If brand, basically, orients customer to attribution and use of product,

so with trademark, it has many meaning levels

 Present attributions A trademark represents for attributions of

product These may be enduring, good, nice, expensive, cheap…Customer may connect to attributions of goods from the trademarkthat it represents Attributions of goods are basic for business todecide the next meaning levels

 Present product’s advantages When customers buy product of

trademark, they buy its advantages, not attributions The advantagesthat they direct to, start from attributions Vietnamese do not buyendurance, they buy the advantages of using long-range, no losing forrepaired expenses, less money in buying fuel

 Present producer’s value Trademark presents value of goods, buyers

could estimate the value of goods that the producers owned, andthrough that, consumers come to decision of buying actions SONYpresents as a great corporation, they have a strong ability inpenetrating different markets, a talent group of staff, they alwaysdirect toward new products and new facilities

 Present a fixed culture Trademark represents a nation and a culture

When they read trademark, they immediately know the nation that theproducts belong to and what the culture’s specifications are FORDMotor makes everyone contact with active, creative and modernculture of American

 Speaking of company’s personality Trademark represents owner-self

It reflects their characters, life styles, thinking and work In Vietnam,FPT is known to have youthful and genial staff MICROSOFT isbeing spoken with billionaire BillGates

 Trademark also represents the position and status of consumers A

trademark let we know what social stratum, hobby and aesthetic levelcustomers belong to When we see a man who steps out from aMercedes car, we are sure he is a gentleman

For real strong trademark, it would present all above meaning levels.For any business which has not fully had those meaning levels, they need todetermine their trademark strategies corresponding with each meaning level

so that they can have reasonable trademark strategy

1.3 Trademark’s Value

When we speak of French, we think about champagne, with American

we think about IBM, MICROSOFT, P&G And they are TOYOTA, SONY if

it is Japan

Most people hearing the name "UNILEVER" in Vietnam automaticallyremember it is a global company producing consumer goods of manynotable brand names such as SUNSILK shampoo and OMO detergent,among others They would also realise that the company owns a valuabletrademark COCA-COLA soft drink, one of the top ten brands in the worldvalued at $67 billion in 2004, which is more than the Coca Cola’s companytotal asset value, also makes customers remember it owns other famousbrands such as FANTA, SPRITE, and JOY Notable brands and their imagesobviously have a strong influence on customers A company’s positive imagecreates company prestige; brings value to its trademark and contributes todeveloping it

So we could said that trademark is a company’s property We stillknow trademark’s prestige in conduct is an invisible property is difficult toquantify But nowadays there are many business’s trademark that their valuerise up billions USD

According to the valuation of Integrand company, trademark’s value

of COCA-COLA is 69.6 billion USD, MICROSOFT is 64.09 billion USD in2002… And in Vietnam, recently, P/S toothpaste trademark has just beentransferred to abroad business by 5 million USD So what satisfyingtrademark’s value?

 Firstly, due attention to be paid to quality and satisfying goods that

trademark owns If trademark is not connected closely with qualityand satisfaction, trademark advertising will be deceptive

 Next, it is difference The difference creates image, owned character

to trademark When we decide to choose SONY television, notSAMSUNG, what make us do that? Reliably, we must see to goodspoint The differences of SONY are high endurance and real colorsetc

 The most important is trademark’s prestige A company wants to buy

trademark of others, actually, they want to buy trademark’s prestige.The prestige creates endurable life to products

The value of trademark presents in many aspects:

 Knowledge levels of trademark A trademark only has value when it is

known generously not only in domestic but also in internationalmarket

 Acceptance of trademark Knowledge level is the condition for

trademark accepting

 Loyalty of trademark Loyalty element decides the value of trademark

Why customers are believable, faithful to trademark? It must be atrademark which satisfies customer’s requirement Or, at least, there isnot a trademark that is more satisfactory A strong trademark whichcreates loyalty will have strength in competitions Company will sellmore products, operate more steadily and easily than when deciding tocreate a new product

2 The Process of Building and Developing Trademark

2.1 The Elements Affecting the Building Process of Trademark

All the elements which affect marketing process of a business, also

affect the building process of trademark However, in the thesis, I only dealwith the important and direct elements

- Modern consumption tendency of customers There are stillmany tendencies affecting the trademark decision of business However, wemay generalize those consumption behaviors as follows: Nowadayscustomers buy products not only purely need basic advantages but also moreimportant, there are wants that are hidden inside And companies have tolook for and satisfy those wants best

- Tendency of the economy directs to the knowledgeableeconomy that gets technology for foundation Consumers live in a moderneconomy with stormy development of information technology This urges us

to have demands for super modern products When building trademark,businesses need to catch this to create products whose trademarks makecustomers emotive Motor, motorbike firms were the fastest businesses.They have a series of trademark such as Super Dream, Wave Alpha,especially is @ motor, this is a small trademark of Honda which representsnew products generation, bold information technology

- Tendency of globalization and regionalization The internationaleconomic integration ushers an era when “the world does not havefrontiers” Markets for businesses become large but encounter manychallenges A few internal trademarks may make troubles for abroadmarkets This requires the businesses when building trademark, they mustpay attention to globalization trademark strategies and reasonable decisions

- Culture element of particular tradition of gold markets In eachnation, each area, even each region exists long traditional cultured values It

is difficult to change these values Thus, when businesses decide to buildtrademark, they need to examine between global trademark building andparticular elements.

- Competitors: Trademark building process was affected bycompetitors If the company is still weak, it can strive for different trademarkstrategies, for example, search for the market that has been not exploited yet,avoid confrontational competition If the company is strong enough to carryout with the methods which challenge competitors, it will set off the power

as trademark of the company

- Political elements: Political elements involve in laws and underlaw document system, political instruments of The State, organizationapparatus and management mechanism of The Government and social-political organizations

Trademark decisions, though wanted or not, always obey legalregulations They affect double-faced to trademark building process In onehand, the company is bound by political limits such as brands do notcorrespond with policy, law, or The Government establishes the office thatprotects consumers On the other hand, political elements are necessary.They ensure that trademark of business are avoided by violation behavior ofcompetitors as stolen trademark as well as false trademark etc

So political elements, essentially affect trademark constructively andthey are obstacle for businesses, that their activities are not for customers

2.2 Trademark Decisions

Trademark decision is an important work, it has a meaning which

decides success or failure of trademark building process It includes:

2.2.1 Labeling Decision

Many companies did not label their products before, but nowadays

when trademark becomes company’s property, labeling one’s products isvery important.The advantages of labeling are as follows:

 Make sellers easier to settle orders, and solve disputes about delivery

Instead of ordering an “exclusive beer”, customers only call according

to name: HEINEKEN, TIGER, and so on

 Trademark ensures a legal protection with unique nature of products

The products are avoided to be imitated publicly

 Assist seller attract a loyal buyer quantity, may yield

 Assist seller in dividing the market Instead of a kind of product for all

markets, when labeling, company could bring different labels intodifferent markets

 When trademark is successful, it contributes to building the image of a

company

2.2.2 Trademark Sponsor Decision

Manufactures have two choices about trademark sponsor rights.

- Products will be labelled by the producer’s trademark

- Products will be labelled by the distributor’s trademark

Inevitably, any producer also wants their products to bring their owntrademark However, they have to depend on the distributor The companywill get more troubles if it is weaker than the distributor If the distributors

want the products to bring their trademark, this conflict creates “ownedtrademark war”.

To have products bring their own trademark, intermediary distributorsface many disadvantages Regardless of risks, they search for manufacturesthat have abundant ability, ready to produce their own trademark with lowprice They select communication, advertisement mediums with low price,from that they still have lower-price product and have much more benefitthan the producers

To avoid losing trademark, producers increase expenses on promotion,advertisement activities, communication strength; have intermediarydistribution contracts and plan themselves reasonable trademark strategies

2.2.3 Decision Name of Trademark

Many people are confused between product trademark and commercialname of a company They vaguely consider that a company’s name istrademark or a product’s name is trademark The disastrous confusion will

be settled when we have knowledge of brand name decision Trademarkbuilders could select one in four methods to determine name of trademark asfollows:

 One, Separate brand-mark for different products The different

products though less or more will be labelled by different brands.With this labeling strategy, the company has to cope with thefollowing advantages:

- Connect closely the company’s fame with any product because

if there is a failure of any brand, it will not much affect the company’sprestige

- Allow the company to find a better name of a series of productsthat it does not have if following other strategies.

- Create diversity of different brands for customers to choose

 Two, Trademark-name is identical for all kinds of products of a

company

Also advantages can be offered:

- Research and development expenses are low The companydoes not lose much time to research name for many kinds of products andadvertisement programs may be identical for all

- Will create high consumption level if business has prestige ?This way only applies for all kinds of products that identify in quality.Lesson from products of Phillips showed that if a company produces goodswhose qualities are different, customers will normalize the quality of allkinds of other products Phillips produces from high-grade to commoner butuse common brand Phillips for all As a result, when customers think ofPhillips, they think of normal quality

 Three, Separate name for different product lines This is ideal way for

the corporations which take part in many fields

 Four, Have the commercial name of the company combine with

trademark This way has many advantages, having been appliedsuccessfully in famous firms such as Honda, Ford and so on.Company’s prestige will make products dominate easily in marketsand when brand is successful It increases company’s prestige.However, this way still does not avoid the weak points of the firststrategy

Whether labeling way, a name of trademark has to meet the followingrequirements: • Speaking of product’s quality.

• Speaking of something from product’s advantages

• Easy to read, recognize and remember

• Create a special sensation

• Avoid bad-meaning when translating into foreign language

• Correspond with regulations of native country.

2.2.4 Decide about Trademark Strategy

There are four strategies to choose:

 Expanding products

The strategy add more goods to the same product under a brand Theadditional goods are improved products as new flavor, new color, newdesign and so on For example: “Energy water Number One is now canned”.Most of expanding strategies of products are about sorts There are manyreasons for the fact that the company decides to choose this strategy, when:

- Production capacity of the company is high

- The company wants to meet the demand for productdiversification of customers

- The company discovers potential wants of customers

- The company wants to catch up with the new product strategy

of competitors

- Appropriate additional display place of intermediate

However, this strategy could get risks

- Built- trademark name may lose special meaning

- Expanding sorts may be not enough for development, researchexpenses.

- Create internal competition, meaning to reduce share ofproducts before

 Expanding strategy of brand Using the present brand-mark to launch

new products HONDA, for example, this firm specialized in usingowned name to subsidize kinds of products such as cars, motorbikes,grass-cutters, etc

Advantages of this strategy numbered:

- A new product is easily successful with the fame of old trademark

- Company easily takes part in new product strategy

- Save much expense in advertisement and relation with customers.Besides that, there occur many risks:

-If new products are a failure, customers will be hopeless It effects onother products

-Old trademark name can’t suit with new products

If expanding is not right, it will damage special position thattrademark was built

 Multi brands strategy Strategy use multi brands for available

products A company will use this strategy when:

- It creates different new sensations to customers

- A company launches new bands to oppose competitors toprotect main-force brand

- A company buys other companies with their own

This strategy will not be used when:

- Each brand only spends on a small market share

- It is difficult to concentrate on resource on a brand.

- The special meaning of main-force brand may be lost

 Strategy for using new brand

When a company produces a new product without suitable old brand

or in case, a company wants to build a new trademark to start a new kind ofproduct, especially, the company should apply this strategy whenconfronting challenges with competitors

2.3 Create Trademark from Products and Internal Company

Marketing’s view shows that the trademark building process is a long

process, and must pursue general marketing program It means that a brandwants to become a trademark or higher, a strong trademark, so trademarkalways connect to quality service and satisfaction Moreover, it needs tohave an effective communication, advertisement and promotion program

2.3.1 Trademark Connects Closely to Quality, Valuation and Service

We know famous trademark such as IBM, Mercedes, Sony,Toyota and so on Perhaps their successes depend on ebullientadvertisement, promotion and communication program? Inevitably, we can’tdeny big role of advertisement, but more important, their products alwaysconnect to quality, service and satisfaction of customers The motto of most

of business is “Customer is God”, to win competitors even to exist, there is

no way rather than to supply exclusive value for customers So it can be saidthat a company not only creates products but also customers except thetechnology to make products The company must expert in business

technology When customers choose a product of A, B or C firm, they base

on the value they can receive from products

The value supplied for customers is different between product’s value andcost Among that, total value of goods is expressed through advantages ofutilization and additional services The cost is expressed in price and otherexcess expenses Thus, in order for the trademark to be chosen by customers

in business’s decisions, there are two ways, utilizing cost is lower thancompetitive trademark While its advantage is equal or higher, even cost orprice may be higher but the company must satisfy with higher quality, betterservices, and the group of staff serve more enthusiastically Nowadays,customers no longer want cheap goods Instead, they need products withhigh quality, perfect services For this reason, quality and services aredominant factors for choice of customers

2.3.2 Building the Distribution System

We should understand the distribution system in wide meaning as

follows:

The distribution system of a trademark is a close distribution system

of products in which businesses have the right to decide or affect mainly oncontrolling goods source, price as well as promotion program after sale.Those are two characters of the distribution system

Based on these characters, we can see that any company wants to haveits owned distribution system for trademark There are many ways to dividedistribution system of different businesses, but the best way to researchtrademark include:

- Distribution system for one or a group of goods For example, inVietnam, there are LIOA, retail firms of fuel.

- Distribution system that the intermediary sells goods for differenttrademarks of many companies at the same time In this case, there are supermarkets and general department stores

2.3.3 Relation with Customers

As we can see that to have a successful trademark, we need to createspirit relation to customers as high as possible In order to do so thecompany needs to establish a direct relationship with customer as follows:

 Basic level: follows this, the staff only sell products without relation

to customer again

 Repeat level: the staff encourages customers to deal again whenever

they meet problems about product

 Responsibility level: after a selling time, the staff contact customers

again to ask if they are satisfied with the products The staff also asksthem for contributing their idea to the products, shows their wish, sothat the company could have the orientation to renew products

 Repeat many times: sometimes, the staff deal with customers for

consulting them about how to use the product effectively

 The highest level, the co-operate level: to follow this level in dealing

with customers the company could find the demands, new hopesthroughout showing them advisory, on the other hand give suitablerenew

For low venue products, because the customers are only the single soall enterprise have the basic relation level or repeat level Of course, thisdoes not satisfy the customer but it is difficult for the company because ofcosts, crowded staff while turnover could not compensate increasing cost

For the trademark which its value is high, their partners are big firms so therelation is at the highest level Boeing relate with AOL airlines.

Direct relation creates loyalty If we have a close relation to ourcustomer, they would be loyal to our trademark

2.4 Advertising Trademark Abroad

Beside creating quality products, high value companies need to set up

a trademark advertisement program abroad including: advertisement, sellingpromotion, propagation, relation with consumers

2.4.1 Advertising to Create Notion about Trademark

“Advertisement is the indirect expounding and idea promotions,

goods, services in any way which is paid by a real sponsor"

Purpose of advertisement The general purpose is to create idea abouttrademark for consumers The company has the targets in different periods ofthe trademark building process

For the first time trademark enters into the market, the highest target isinformation for consumers about new trademark

In period of persuading consumers, the purpose is forming thefavorite of trademark from consumers, encourage customers to change theirtrademark to use the company’s trademark, changing awareness ofcustomers about nature and advantage of products

Purpose of remind With the purpose to remind about the existencenon-stop renew of products, advertisements do not need high intensity,

choose the long- term media Some advertising media can be chosen asfollows:

- Advertisement via direct selling channel: the sales-force should beskilled and professional transactors, able to catch customers' thinking andfully aware of products and services to introduce and persuade them intobuying

- Advertisement in communicating media The advantage of this media

is strong affection, large and diversified influence but it requires high costand repetition There is a diversity of communicating media and each ofthem is suitable for specific customers and services or products

- Direct advertisement by using mail, telephone, leaflet, the Internet,

2.4.2 Promote in Selling and Introducing Trademark to Customer Selling promotion is a group of communication means that using

agitation tools, encourage customers and upgrade their demands for thetrademark immediately Selling promotion directly encourages consumptionthrough supplement matters for customers

First, we have to determine that the target of selling promotion isaimed at both consumers and distribution intermediary

- To consumer: Encourage them to use much more and be loyal

to the trademark Further more, to create consumers using new trademarks.New customers through the decision process will soon be affected byadvantages Selling promotion in a suitable level, avoiding the incorrectevaluation of customer to the trademark will help the company have newcustomers

- To the intermediary: Encourage the delivery force to increasetheir activities, promotion consumption, reinforce and expand thedistribution channel more and more

The company could choose one or coordinate many kinds of promotionmeans:

 Group of tools which push up the intermediate activities in

distributing channel such as finance sponsors, free of charge goods,cash, gifts, etc

 Customer conferences, trade fairs

 Display products at selling places

 Contests and games

 Customer clubs

2.4.3 Propagate for Trademark

Propaganda is using the public media without money to introducetrademark to current and potential customers to reach certain target ofbusiness Propaganda may affect strongly on social understanding level,persuade the consumer more strongly and less costly for advertisement Thecontent of propaganda includes:

 Propagation for products with different efforts which make the

consumer know about any trademark

 Operation propaganda is the activity which involves inside and

outside companies to help everybody know about themselves, createthe image and upgrade the advantages of the company

 Gallery motivation is communication with lawmakers or state officers

to support a law or not

 Propagate about a disadvantage case of the company

Those decisions of propagation include:

- Determine the target

- Design the message, select communication means

- Carry out propaganda

- Evaluate the result of propaganda

II Trademark’s Roles for Businesses

1 Trademark : Invisible Property of Businesses

Trademark is the image, symbol of a business’s products Throughtrademark business could carry out advertising, promoting products, attractcustomer’s attention to products The more a trademark is known, the moreproducts of a business are loved and believed This is the element whichdecides business activities and profits It contributes to existence anddevelopment of a business

When business registers trademark, they indispensably have the legalproperty rights for trademark So businesses completely have business rights

to the registered trademark Specifically, the business is allowed to use thetrademark or transfer to the other participators and receive transferring-money In facts, the more a trademark is well-known the bigger transferring-money is The business can also sell property rights of the trademark to theother participators through licensed contract if they do not want or theycould not commerce any more to get money back On the other hand, whenbusiness is bankrupted or sell together with permanent property, they couldget additional money through selling trademark It is reason why trademark

is an invisible property

2 Trademark : Protection for Prestige and Value of Businesses

For the registered trademark, business has the legal property rights Sothat business complete has adequate rights on legal in preventingcompetitors or the third party that use similar or the same owned trademarkillegally Although they are intentional or unintentional, violator’s purpose isreaching profit

However, using unintentionally similar or the same trademark is rare

It essentially bases on trademark’s fame and customer’s belief in products toreach profits illegally Business has legal rights to require partiesimmediately stop using the trademark illegally and compensate for damagethat the business has been done

by a business that produces a famous trademark and customers completelybelieve in the product’s quality

4 Trademark: Loyal Customers for Businesses

Famous trademark has prestige about quality and value of goods,reliability known by consumers With quality of goods and trademark’sprestige, consumers regularly maintain buying confidence Therefore, this is

occurring in a long time and it only concludes when business does notproduce goods that do not bring the trademark like that, or belief ofcustomers in the quality is changing.

A business could evaluate loyal customers or not from observingwhen they buy goods which bring business’s trademark If their shop runsout of goods, they go to the others and search the trademark or changing tobuy different trademark In fact, so much loyal customers are big, so manyprestigious business are large Concurrently, this helps businesses to preventthe violations about trademark and brings long and stable existence forbusinesses

5 Trademark: Condition to Potential Export Markets

Most of the developing countries or the economic powers do notpermit goods without trademark to be custom procedure Other way, thegoods without trademark are not imported This regulation especially isapplied to the developing countries For these countries, they could notinspect quality and safety of the goods without clear origin, so it isunbelievable Developing and registering a trademark is a foundation forexporting to potential markets and eliminating the barrier and overcoming byboosting exports

Vietnam’s Regulations issued

on Trademark and its Development

I Vietnam’s Regulations on Trademark

1 Trademark Registration in Vietnam

1.1 Trademark Registration Office

- Trademark registration application is filed directly or through postoffice for the trademark registration office

- Trademark registration fees may be paid by cash, transfer-cheque orstanding order

- Address of the trademark registration office:

The Department of Industrial Property

386 Nguyen Trai road - Hanoi

Account number: 920.90.006 Thanh Xuan branch of The StateTreasury

After June 21st 2003, The Department of Industrial Property will handover the mission of trademark registration for the new office which isappointed by The Government

1.2 Case File of Trademark Registration

Trademark registration application must have the documents asfollows:

- The request application to be registered the trademarkregistration certificate, do as sample (03 copies)

- Trademark sample (15 copies)

- The documents confirmed lawful business rights such asBusiness registration certificate, etc (01 copy)

- Statute of using community trademark if registering community(01 copy).

- The documents confirmed the lawful rights in sending if theapplicant inherits or is transferred (01 copy)

- Delegation of powers, if there is (01 copy)

- The documents confirmed the origin, award, medal, if thetrademark filled with (01 copy)

- Certificate of using individual name, image or symbol of thenation, locality, celebrity, organization granted by the office, personal whohas competence (01 copy)

- The documents of paying registration fees (01 copy)

1.3 Fees and Charges of Trademark Registration

They involved in:

- Filing fee (for each group of products or services): 150 000VND

- Content examination fee (for each group of products orservices):

2 Exploitation and Protection of Registered Trademark

2.1 Rights of Business for the Registered Trademark

In case the trademark is accepted to be registered, it is acknowledged

in the national register book Business who is awarded certificate and would

be the owner of the trademark

The business who owns the registered trademark has the rights asfollows:

- Monopoly in exploiting trademark or permitting the othersusing the trademark to batter for benefits Forbid the others to use thattrademark or the similar

- Transferring the property rights to the others barter for benefits

2.2 Validity of Trademark Registration

- The trademark registration certificate is limited within 10 years,but can be extended continuously every 10 year, no valid times

- The trademark registration certificate may be suspended byrequirement of the others if the owner terminates existence or do not use thattrademark 5 years continuously

- The trademark registration certificate may be canceled byrequirement of the others if the certificate is issued to the person who has norights to file the trademark application, or in case the trademark is notsatisfied protection standard

2.3 Protection of Registered Trademark

- Protecting trademarks in franchising arrangements is a majorconcern for Vietnamese businesses To protect the registered trademark of

their own, businesses need to have measures to follow up to discover if otherbusinesses use identical or similar trademark.

- In case the trademark is infringed, business should request thestate office who can apply the suitable measures to protect the trademarksuch as: Terminate their activity, compensate loss, punish administrative orinvestigate penal responsibility

- Business also need to combine with the law protection office bysupplying evidence and information of violation behavior

II Development of Vietnamese Trademark

1 Awareness about Trademark of Vietnamese Businesses

Facing the regional and world integration trend, Vietnamesebusinesses get many problems of products and, especially the trademarkproblem

Among our businesses in two opposite extremes exist:

First, many businesses are aware of the special position of thetrademark to their existence and development They are conscious of how tobuild a trademark The businesses of this extreme are big and young creativecompanies who have conditions to get in touch with overseas companies.Although, among them, some are not really strong in finance ability,experience is limited but they are still conscious of the important role oftrademark It is basic for their success BitI’s for example, they are bold toinvest in developing their trademark by advertising program that areattractive and impressive with national character, basing on “The Tay Soninsurgent army step” and “Truong Son step” Another is Trung Nguyencoffee, they advertised their trademark by accessing into oversea markets

With the event that their trademark was stolen, Trung Nguyen coffee takesthe initiative in registering the monopoly trademark in many countries andtransfers the trademark to get big benefit

Another extreme which more popular is the non or semi-notation ontrademark In fact, these businesses do not have consciousness to build andadvertise their own trademark One example for this is that during a seminar,all the businesses said that they did not have catalogue and leaflet when theexpert asked Of course, this is not all but it showed the consciousness ofadvertising their trademark For quite a long time now in many businesses,trademark is secondary only, they are more interested in the four problems inmarketing: product, price, place and promotion However, interested in all offour problems are not enough While trademark is covered all as the trend inthe world, but building the trademark in Vietnam is only the decision ofproduct label and the businesses are not interested in how to build atrademark and direct toward customers

Other businesses make progress, but not pay much attention totrademark They registered the industrial property for the trademark but donot care about how to develop the trademark Many of them invested intrademark very perfunctory, leading to the fact that the businesses trademark

is known in dim way

About the problem that is how to make the trademark penetrate intothe oversea markets Almost Vietnamese businesses are not bold enough tothink of advertising their trademark abroad Take a look about this problem

in the leather shoes industry, in the quantity of exported shoes, the number ofthe product with the trademark of Vietnamese is not noticeableachievements At present, leather shoes is one of the main export products of

the country with the turnover of more than one billion USD per year but weessential process for foreign firms Some ideas impute to the business’sability: “According to our real ability, we do not dare to think about bringingour trademark abroad” Because according to the businesses, the minimumexpense (services and consultant included) takes about thousands of USD toregister a trademark in The United State of American But it is hard to sellafter registered, without amount of some hundred thousands of or evenmillions of USD to advertise the trademark a year Of course, the defendant

of businesses is suitable but need to ask themselves “Invest or bankrupt?”

2 Trademark’s Position of Vietnamese Businesses

2.1 Position of Trademark in Domestic Market

The main difficulty in building trademark of the businesses lies in theideology of preference foreign made goods of Vietnamese We have to admitthat the domestic trademark can’t catch up with the foreign about price andquality so it is hard for them to bring the product to customers for the firsttime and build prestige for the trademark as well

In equal way, the preference of foreign made goods trend has itscause, almost foreign trademarks enter into Vietnam are very prestigious andwell-known worldwide, with long developmental history such as SONY,TOYOTA, etc

Recently, Vietnamese trademarks have its important advances.Following the innovations of The Saigon Economic Times about the fair ofVietnamese high quality goods, the Vietnamese trademarks are step by stepgetting an important position in domestic consumers such as Rang Dong

light bulb and thermos flask company, Biti’s, Trung Nguyen coffee, and

so on

In the potential trademarks, hardware field gets the most successfulachievement The personal computer of the Mekong Green and T&Happear at Top 3 of the most favorite personal computer This position is afterCompaq and above IBM, HP, ACER, and so on, this affirms that thecomputer trademark of Vietnam will soon be prestige trademark not only indomestic but also oversea as well Beside the computer trademark, in theprevious year, there were many directions for other products as exportVietnamese motorbike trademark (Lisohaka) to Angola, Cambodia.Recently we have introduced the bus trademark of Vietnam and we will gainthe Vietnamese automobile trademark in 2006

2.2 Position of Trademark in International Markets

Exports of Vietnam are not satisfied with the requirement of label, notyet creating trademark According to the report of The Ministry ofCommerce, in the early 2002 there were 34% of the total exports to the USrefused because of wrong label procedure We had a check over the nationabout this problem showing that most of them are not standard The goodscontained chemicals with 98.5% (the label without Vietnamese, expert date,name of businessman), ready garment and fabric with 81.2% (without name

of premise, material composition, sizes, label, so on), cosmetic with 69%(without Vietnamese, foreign goods without auxiliary branch, name ofpremise), fertilizer with 49.3%, cattle food with 48%, foodstuff with46.15%