After meeting the standards of the TRIRS Agreement, in order to work alongside with other fields in making Vietnam a member of the WTO, the Intellectual Property System of Vietnam is facing many great new challenges. Among them, the biggest, most difficult, long-term challenge is to prove itself and play an active role in making an effective contribution to the socio-economic development of Vietnam.
Playing an active and effective role in socio-economic development is the biggest challenge as it is the highest final goal and the reason for the existence and development of the Intellectual Property System. It is the development of the nation’s socio-economic that motivates the construction and the improvement of the system rather than external pressures
Nevertheless, achieving the aforementioned great goal is difficult and laborious as the Vietnam Intellectual Property System itself still lacks many things, which cannot be done immediately. The biggest shortage currently is the shortage of manpower and theoretic. Almost every division of the Intellectual Property System has a serious shortage of people with intellectual property knowledge and skills. In particular, most Vietnamese businesses - the most important subjects of intellectual property activities – are unable to have specialists to manage their intellectual properties. Many key theoretical issues on intellectual property are still found unfamiliar by these business owners. Multiple events and practical issues have not been explained or enlightened. Available resources only cover the basic legal factors, yet these are inadequate for the system to operate effectively. We need to bear in mind that it will take us the next 20 years of unceasing attempt to achieve that goal.
The Vietnam Intellectual Property Research Institute (VIPRI) was founded by the Minister of Science and Technology to contribute a small part of its effort to the society to overcome the above-mentioned shortcomings and to promote the development of the system. The main function of the Institute is theoretical research and talents mentoring in the field of intellectual property.
Regarding research activities, the Institute advocates combining individual researches with the introduction and appliance of individuals’ and organizations’ research results. We consider usefulness and practicality to be the highest standards for individual study activities in the immediate period. Therefore, applied research will be considered a priority research direction during this period. The research topics of interest will be the economic aspects related to intellectual property and the legal aspects of intellectual property rights.
Regarding human resources training and development activities, the Institute prioritizes building a contingent team of intellectual property administrators for Vietnamese businesses. In order to do so, we focus on coordinating with regulatory agencies and businesses to gradually develop and refine programs to improve the knowledge and skills of managing this special type of asset. By 2015, we expect that the majority of Vietnamese large and medium-sized enterprises will have their own intellectual property management specialists. Subjects and other training programs will also be our priority.
In addition to research and training, VIPRI has also been assigned a special task of conducting industrial property assessment activities to serve the settlement of conflicts, violations of paterns, designs, trademarks, and geographical indications... This is a special task since providing professional guidelines for the authorities and related parties to resolve disputes is not only a complex task that demands high levels of expertise and an objective attitude, but it is also a novel model for the world.
In order to fulfill these three functions, we especially focus on the building of partnerships with experts and other organizations. This is why there are many experts on the list of collaborators of VIPRI.
With limited resources and capabilities, VIPRI will try to set appropriate plans and solutions to achieve those goals.
We hope and believe that VIPRI will make a practical contribution to the overall development and improvement of VIPRI.
12/23/2014
Ta Quang Minh
Director of Vietnam Intellectual Property Research Institute