Duy lợi english.

Duy lợi english.

Duy Loi foldable hammock

- Innovative ideas, plus effective means to appropriate the ideas.

- Obtaining appropriate legal services which allow the designated law firm to win law suits in overseas countries, therefore opening up the export market.

Success factors

Duy Loifoldable hammock

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, as a worker in a

state-run mechanics enterprise, Mr Loi lived in very difficult conditions, receiving only a low income One day,

a neighbor asked him to fix a hammock which had a metal-supported structure Mr Loi modified the structure, making it foldable so that it was easier to use and carry

Positive feedback from his neighbor convinced Mr Loi of the potential market for his idea

Excited with his new idea, he made some prototypes which were very much enjoyed by voluntary users He discussed the idea of launching this new product with his manager at the state-owned enterprise (SOE), as a profit-sharing arrangement between Mr Loi and the SOE After cooperating with the SOE for a short time, the deal turned out to be problematic He decided to quit his job at the SOE and set up his own production unit to make and market the foldable hammocks

Making hammocks and supporting structures with traditional materials (wood and steel rather than high-tech material) does not require any sophisticated technology and/or huge investment Literally, any one with small amounts of capital and a fair knowledge of mechanics could set up a workshop to make hammocks However, what makes Mr Loi's hammock business different from others is that he has had the innovative idea of creating a foldable frame Traditional hammocks do not have any supporting structure at all The two tails are tied to any two fixed objects - be they trees, pillars or metal rings fixed on

to walls With a foldable frame (made of metal or wood), the hammock can be set up anywhere without having to consider the supporting points

An even greater advantage is that Mr Loi has been able to protect his idea by means of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) legislation As a mechanic, he knew very well that his idea of a foldable frame could easily be copied once it was exposed to the market He therefore applied to patent his designs in Vietnam quite early in the progress of his business, before he started any mass production His first application was recognized by the Department of IPR in Vietnam on 23 March 2000 and he was granted a patent for his design shortly afterwards This move turned out to be vital for his business, given later developments

Success with the patenting of his product in Vietnam gave

Mr Loi more confidence to start mass production Right from the start, in 2000, given its highly portable capability (foldable and weighing only 7 kg), Duy Loi foldable hammocks quickly became dominant in the Southern market The market was quickly expanded in 2001 and

2002 He also started to export, mainly to the United States (US), Japan, South Korea and Australia

Following his success during these years, in 2002, Duy Loi successfully signed a supplying contract with Keyio, an international Japanese supermarket chain However, at the height of his business success, a threat emerged that promised to block this promising contract In August 2002, Duy Loi received a letter from a lawyer representing a Japanese

company requiring that Duy Loi had to either stop exporting its foldable hammock to Japan or pay a royalty of $4 per hammock The Japanese firm argued that the Duy Loi foldable hammock had violated its patent (Number 3081528) on a similar structure which was granted by the Japanese Patent Office on 22 August 2001

Confronted with this challenge, Mr Loi decided to seek support from a law firm, a very rare move for a small to medium enterprise (SME) in Vietnam He discussed his situation with Pham &

Associates, a law firm with a specialization in this field, and became convinced that, given that the patent for his design was recognized by the Vietnamese IPR authorities on 23 March

2000, much earlier than the date of issue

of the Japanese patent, he had a chance to file a suit against the Japanese firm and so protect his business Pham & Associates were assigned as representatives for Duy Loi in this process In November 2002, Duy Loi formally sent a letter to the Japanese Patent Office requiring the Office to withdraw the patent granted to the Japanese firm since the invention described in this patent was similar to the Duy Loi structure which had been exposed to the public much earlier Given the solid arguments and evidence for his case, after six months of the suit the Japanese Patent Office withdrew Patent

3081528, opening the way for Duy Loi to export to the Japanese market

The Japan experience make Duy Loi more careful about IPR issues, especially when

the company expanded its overseas market Through searching the US patent database, Pham & Associates found a patent filed on 23 March 2001, granted by the US Patent Office to a Taiwanese businessman for his inventive idea of a foldable hammock It is obvious that the structure shown in this patent is very similar to that of Duy Loi's hammock

Given that this patent was filed much later than the day the Duy Loi structure was released to the public, Duy Loi decided to bring a suit against the Taiwanese businessman for violating US patent law

If successful with this suit, Duy Loi can avoid being accused of violating IPR, and means the company can freely export to the US market

The two law suits have turned Duy Loi into a very well-known firm in Vietnam

To some extent, this has helped to sell their products in the domestic market

However, it has not been easy for the firm

to develop its market domestically

Although Duy Loi has won the market in the South, the Northern market (Ha Noi in particular) has not developed to the extent

Mr Loi desires The only product that sells well in Ha Noi is the hammock for children Mr Loi explained that people in

Ha Noi regard the hammock as something belonging to the countryside - something which is no longer suitable for modern houses This sense of what is suitable for modernization has been an emerging trend in recent times Another difficulty is that Duy Loi also has many competitors

Some of them obviously copy the Duy Loi design, but given the week enforcement

of IPR law in Vietnam, it is very costly to prevent this Other producers have modified their design to avoid violating

IPR law, and these producers compete directly with Duy Loi

Besides the main product line, the company also produces other foldable objects - notably chairs and beds - using

a variety of materials and designs The company now owns seven patents for inventions/utility models and one patent for industrial design related to its products

Mr Loi's management style is modest He works in a simple office located right in the workshop There is a large design table in the office where he develops most

of his designs with a simple calculator He describes himself as the manager, designer and technician of the company and is very proud of the compact organizational form of the company It is very obvious that he hates the old hard days of complex but ineffective

administration of SOEs and that he tries his best not to emulate this with his own company

From a family size workshop with a few workers, Duy Loi has developed into a well-known firm with about 70 workers at the present time (early 2005) The company sells several tens of thousands

of products per year, of which 30% are exported It has 200 distribution agents in Vietnam and they also function as the main marketing channels Its local markets are mainly in HCMC and Southern provinces The Northern market

is under development and has so far not been very successful The company exports to many countries, including Japan and the US

Success factors

- Innovative ideas, plus effective means to

appropriate the ideas.

- Obtaining appropriate legal services which allow the designated law firm to win

law suits in overseas countries, therefore opening up the export market.