Administrative Actions for enforcement of IPRs in Vietnam

Under Articles 198 and 199 of the Law on Intellectual Property 2005 amended in 2009 and 2019 (“amended IP law”) and related legislation, an IP right holder shall have the right to request the administrative competent authorities (including Inspectorates of Ministries, Economic Police, Market Management Bureau, Customs Offices, People’s committees at all level) to deal with infringement. Also, as per Article 215 of this Law and related guiding Decrees and Circulars regulating sanctions against administrative IP infringement, forms of administrative penalty and remedy measures include the following sanctions:

a. Warning;

b. A monetary fine;

c. Confiscation of counterfeit goods, raw materials and materials, and facilities used mainly for production or trading of such counterfeit goods;

d. Suspension of business activities for a prescribed period in the sector in which the infringement was committed;

e. Compulsory destruction, distribution or use for non-commercial purposes counterfeit goods as well as raw materials and materials, and facilities used mainly for production or trading of such counterfeit goods, provided that such destruction, distribution or use will not affect the exploitation of holders’ intellectual property rights;

f. Compulsory transportation out of the territory of Vietnam of infringing goods or compulsory re-export of counterfeit goods and imported materials and raw materials, and facilities used mainly for production or trading of such counterfeit goods after the infringing elements have been removed from such goods.

D&N International is fully capable of providing clients with legal services in administrative enforcement actions in connection with patents, industrial designs, trademarks, copyrights, unfair competition, domain name, etc.

Our main services include but not limited to:

• • • Consulting and giving advice to clients on possibility of infringement of protected objects;
    • Giving assessment on chance of success and providing the best strategy to deal with the act of infringement;
    • Obtaining IP assessment on whether there is an IP infringement or not issued by the competent authority in support of administrative handling of IP infringement;
    • Obtaining valid evidence certified by the Bailiff in support of administrative handling of IP infringement;
    • Filing and pursuing complaints to the competent authorities requesting for administrative actions against infringements;
    • Filing and pursuing Customs border control measures including (i) request for control and supervision on import/export goods, and (ii) request for temporary suspension of doing customs procedures as to a specific container of goods suspected of being infringing or counterfeit;
    • Before taking the above-mentioned acts, we can assist the clients in preparing and sending a cease-and-desist letter requesting infringer(s) to stop the act of infringement.

Collaborating with the Vietnamese competent authorities in handling IP infringments

Seizure and destruction of counterfeit goods 

Providing the competent authorities with information for identifying real products against counterfeits at training events under clients’ requests