Handling unfair competition in Vietnam

In Vietnam, provisions on unfair competition are found in both the Competition Law and the Law on Intellectual Property 2005 amended in 2009 and 2019 (the “IP Law”), though only the Competition Law provides a definition, which refers to acts that run contrary to good conscience in business practice while the amended IP Law provides an exhaustive list of acts of unfair competition in the intellectual property field. Specifically, Article 130, the amended IP Law stipulates the unfair competition practices as follows:

a) Using commercial indications (i.e., signs, information serving as guidelines to trade of goods and services, including marks, trade names, business symbols, business slogans, geographical indications, package designs, label designs, etc.) that cause confusion as to business entities or business activities or commercial source of goods or services;

b) Using commercial indications that cause confusion as to the origin, production method, feature, quality, quantity or other characteristics of goods or services; or as to the conditions for provision of goods and services;

c) Using a mark being protected in a country which is party to an international treaty to which Vietnam is a party under which provisions, the representative or agent of the mark owner is prohibited from using the mark, if the user was a representative or agent of the mark owner and such use was neither consented to by the mark owner nor justified;

d) Registering or possessing the right to use or using a domain name identical with or confusingly similar to a protected trade name or mark of another person, or a geographical indication that one does not have the right to use, for the purpose of possessing the domain name, benefiting from or prejudicing reputation and goodwill of the respective mark, trade name and geographical indication.

Use of commercial indications as said above include any act of affixing such commercial indications on goods, packaging, service means, business transaction documents and advertising means; selling, advertising for sale, storing for sale and importing goods affixed with such commercial indications.

Our service encompasses counseling client when their interests were damaged by unfair activities or requesting competent authorities and/or courts to handle unfair competition.