The Law on Intellectual Property came into force on July 1^st, 2006, and was revised in 2009. Since the law took effect, IP applications have increased on an annual basis. From 2006 to 2015, the Copyright Office of Vietnam at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism granted 43,000 certificates of copyright and related rights. The National Office of Intellectual Property received more than 400,000 applications on intellectual property rights for trademarks and issued nearly 232,000 protection certificates. Le Ngoc Lam is Deputy Director of the National Office of Intellectual Property at the Ministry of Science and Technology: “After 10 years of enforcement, many organizations, individuals, enterprises, research institutes, and universities have been well aware of intellectual property rights. They know how to take advantage of IP rights to create, apply and protect their IPs both at home and in overseas markets. As a result, they have strengthened their foothold in the market. The number of applications has increased 10% or 15% since the law took effect. “

Protecting and exercising IP rights have ensured fairness, promoted creativity, and created equal trade mechanisms. Violations of IP rights have also been settled by the Inspectorate of the Ministry of Science and technology. Pham Van Toan, Deputy Director of the Inspectorate of the Ministry of science and technology said: “The handling of violations of IP rights has been done at the request of rights owner. To protect their IP rights, rights owners must submit request to relevant agencies. Over the past few years, we have dealt with fake goods which are the main violation of IP rights.”

Realizing the Law on IP will help enterprises protect their rights at home and abroad. Enterprises have also registered for IP rights protection in their overseas markets.