Heightening Businesses' Awareness of Intellectual Property
The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the United States Department of Commerce (DOC) jointly organised a seminar on “Protecting intellectual property for Vietnamese small and medium businesses” in Hanoi City.
At the seminar, Ms Elaine Wu, attorney advisor of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), pointed out the importance of protecting intellectual property rights for SMEs. By building and developing intellectual property, the prestige and position of the enterprise will always be improved and enhanced to sharpen its competitiveness and earn more market share and profits. However, in fact, most enterprises do not yet fully understand the importance of intellectual property protection. They only care about intellectual property protection when disputes arise and their reputation and earnings are lost directly.
Attending enterprises had the chance to share experience in intellectual property protection. Mr Tran Vu Hoai, vice chairman of International Relations Department of Unilever Vietnam, showed his company’s experience in combating counterfeit goods and knock-off copies. Unilever Vietnam used to lose dozens of millions of US dollars because of counterfeit goods. Unilever has built a strategy for protecting its prestige and its intellectual property, and has reaped success. According to Mr Hoai, although Vietnam already implemented the Law on Intellectual Property, the weakness lies in the implementation of this law. For example, if the violator is fined VND30 million (US$1,850) upward, he/she will be sent to the criminal court. Violators try to commit his/her wrongdoings to less than VND30 million. Thus, he/she will not be sent to criminal court and the punishment is not strong enough, he pointed out.
The opinions from businesses showed that the understanding of intellectual property among SMEs is not high. Besides, they also need support from the government. This is the reason for the absence of patents and brand names of SMEs. Moreover, SMEs encounter difficulties in approaching credit to invest in technologies and equipment.
PV
Vietnamese
