Intellectual Property Lawyers in Vietnam – Trademark, Enforcement & Litigation

Vietnam intellectual property lawyers are working to a statute that changed on 1 April 2026. Law No 131/2025/QH15 amended dozens of articles of the Intellectual Property Law, including the filing rules, the trademark distinctiveness grounds, and the grounds on which a protection title can be invalidated. The work runs from trademark registration in Vietnam, through enforcement against infringers, to IP litigation in Vietnam when a registration or a licence has to be defended.

Any English-language guide to Vietnamese IP written before April 2026 is out of date on those points. This page sets out the current position and what it means for a foreign rights holder.

A decided case Vietnam intellectual property lawyers point to

Judgment No. 54/2025/KDTM-PT of 20 May 2025 — Superior People’s Court, dispute over intellectual property rights.

The Court of Appeal accepted the appellant company’s appeal and amended part of the first-instance judgment of September 2024. It applied Article 4, Article 84, Article 124(1), Article 127(1) and Article 128 of the Law on Intellectual Property, together with Joint Circular No. 02/2008/TTLT on handling IP disputes in the courts.

Two things Vietnam intellectual property lawyers take from it. The articles the court reached for were the ones defining the scope of the right and the acts that infringe it — not the registration file; a certificate gets you standing, the scope articles decide the outcome. And IP appeals in Vietnam do change results: the first-instance judgment was amended, not upheld.

Decided IP cases are published on case.unilaw.vn.

Two further Vietnamese disputes are worth reading in full, because they show how the scope articles are argued in practice: the ASANO trademark dispute, on the infringement criteria, the weight a court gives a VIPRI expert assessment, and the statutory ceiling on damages; and Lafarge v Han Pham, on a domain name registered ahead of the brand owner and how bad faith was inferred from the evidentiary record.

The legal basis Vietnam intellectual property lawyers work from

• Law on Intellectual Property, Law No. 50/2005/QH11, amended by Laws No. 36/2009/QH12, 42/2019/QH14 and 07/2022/QH15, consolidated as No. 11/VBHN-VPQH, and further amended by Law No. 131/2025/QH15 in force 1 April 2026 — Article 4, Articles 84, 89, 90, 93, 96, 97, 124, 127, 128.
• Decree No. 65/2023/ND-CP and Decree No. 17/2023/ND-CP; Decree No. 105/2006/ND-CP on enforcement.
• Joint Circular No. 02/2008/TTLT-TANDTC-VKSNDTC-BVHTTDL-BKHCN-BTP — handling IP disputes in court.
• Civil Procedure Code, consolidated as No. 21/VBHN-VPQH of 12 February 2026, or the Law on Commercial Arbitration, consolidated as No. 60/VBHN-VPQH.

Why foreign applicants need Vietnam intellectual property lawyers to file

This is the rule that decides how a foreign rights holder operates here, and Law No 131/2025/QH15 rewrote the article that contains it.

Article 89 clause 1, as amended, lets Vietnamese organisations and individuals, foreign individuals permanently residing in Vietnam, and foreign organisations and individuals with a production or business establishment in Vietnam file either themselves or through a lawful representative in Vietnam.

Article 89 clause 2 is the operative one for most foreign clients. A foreign individual not permanently residing in Vietnam, and a foreign organisation or individual without a production or business establishment in Vietnam, must file through a lawful representative in Vietnam. There is no self-filing route.

Clause 3 allows the application in writing, on paper or electronically through the e-filing system. Clause 4 leaves the detail to the Minister of Science and Technology.

A foreign group without a Vietnamese entity therefore needs a local representative appointed before the priority date matters, not after.

How rights arise: registration, use, or neither

Article 6 of the consolidated IP Law No 11/VBHN-VPQH sets out how each right comes into existence, and the answer is different for each object.

Copyright arises from the moment the work is created and expressed in a material form, regardless of content, quality, form, medium, language, publication or registration. Registration is evidential, not constitutive.

Related rights arise on fixation or performance, provided copyright is not prejudiced.

Patents, industrial designs, layout designs and trademarks arise on the decision to grant a protection title, or on recognition of an international registration under a treaty Vietnam is party to. For these, filing is everything.

Three exceptions run on use rather than registration. A well-known trademark is protected on the basis of use, independent of registration. A trade name is protected on the basis of lawful use. A trade secret is protected on the basis of lawful acquisition and the maintenance of secrecy. The right against unfair competition arises from competitive business activity itself.

Geographical indications require a grant decision or a treaty. Plant varieties require a Plant Variety Protection Certificate.

First to file: the check Vietnam intellectual property lawyers run first

Article 90 states the first-to-file principle. Where several applications cover identical or equivalent inventions, or identical or not significantly different industrial designs, the title goes to the valid application with the earliest priority date or filing date among those meeting the grant conditions.

Clause 2 applies the same rule to trademarks that are identical or confusingly similar for identical or similar goods and services, and to multiple applications by the same person for identical marks on identical goods.

Clause 3 handles the tie. Where several qualifying applications share the earliest date, the title goes to one of them by agreement between all applicants; if they cannot agree, all the corresponding objects are refused.

A foreign business relying on use in its home market, without a Vietnamese filing, is therefore exposed to a third-party filing here. This is the most common way a brand loses Vietnam.

How long protection lasts: terms Vietnam intellectual property lawyers diarise

Article 93 fixes the terms, and they apply across the whole territory of Vietnam:

• Invention patent — twenty years from the filing date.
• Utility solution patent — ten years from the filing date.
• Industrial design — five years from the filing date, renewable twice, five years each.
• Semiconductor layout design — the earliest of ten years from filing, ten years from first commercial exploitation anywhere in the world by the entitled party, or fifteen years from creation.
• Trademark — ten years from the filing date, renewable indefinitely in ten-year terms.
• Geographical indication — indefinite from the date of grant.

Unregistered rights: trade names, trade secrets, well-known marks

Three of the rights in Article 6 clause 3 need no filing, and each is defended differently.

A trade name is protected on the basis of lawful use. The defence is the use record: incorporation documents, invoices, signage, advertising, all dated. Note the overlap with company registration — Article 15 of Decree No 168/2025/ND-CP now has a coordination procedure for enterprise names that infringe industrial property rights, which cuts both ways depending on which side you act for.

A trade secret is protected on the basis of lawful acquisition plus the maintenance of secrecy. The second limb is where cases fail. If confidentiality measures cannot be evidenced — restricted access, marked documents, signed undertakings, exit procedures — the right is not established, whatever the information is worth.

A well-known trademark is protected on the basis of use, independent of registration. Establishing well-known status is an evidential exercise on the Vietnamese market specifically, not on global reputation.

For all three, the work is done before the dispute, not during it.

Trademarks: the distinctiveness grounds changed in 2026

Article 74 clause 2 lists the signs treated as lacking distinctiveness. Law No 131/2025/QH15 rewrote point (dd) and inserted a new point (dd1).

Point (dd) as amended covers signs indicating the geographical origin of goods or services, unless the sign had been used and widely recognised as a trademark before the filing date, or is registered as a collective or certification mark. For signs indicating Vietnamese national geographical origin, point (dd1) applies instead.

Point (dd1) is new. A sign indicating the Vietnamese national geographical origin of goods or services lacks distinctiveness, unless it had been used and widely recognised as a trademark before the filing date, or it forms a component of a distinctive sign registered as a collective or certification mark.

Practical effect: brands built on a Vietnam-origin reference now face a specific test of their own, separate from the general geographical origin rule. Applications drafted against the pre-2026 text will meet an objection the drafter did not anticipate.

Invalidation: a new ground was added in 2026

Article 96 governs invalidation of a protection title. Law No 131/2025/QH15 added a new point (d) to clause 1: a title may be invalidated where the author of the invention, industrial design or layout design does not meet the requirement in Article 122 clause 1.

The amendment also rewrote point (e) of clause 2, so that an invention, industrial design or trademark failing the first-to-file principle in Article 90 is a ground for invalidation in the terms the article now uses.

Article 97, on termination of validity, was also amended. For a rights holder defending a title, or a challenger attacking one, the grounds available today are not the grounds listed in a 2023 guide.

The transitional rule Vietnam intellectual property lawyers track

Article 3 of Law No 131/2025/QH15 sets the transition, and it is not a clean cut-off.

Applications for industrial property registration, and applications for an IP assessor card, filed before 1 April 2026 are processed under the law in force at the filing date — except two things, which follow the new Law:

• Formality examination, where the industrial property authority has not yet accepted the application as valid;
• The opposition period, for applications published from the effective date of the new Law.

So a file sitting in the queue since 2025 can be examined on formality under the 2026 rules while its substantive treatment stays under the old ones. Vietnam intellectual property lawyers managing a portfolio through this window have to know which of the two regimes applies to each step, not to each file.

Which text is actually current

The base text is the Intellectual Property Law consolidated as No 11/VBHN-VPQH of 8 July 2022, which consolidates Law No 50/2005/QH11 with the amendments made by Law No 36/2009/QH12, Law No 42/2019/QH14 and Law No 07/2022/QH15.

That consolidation stops in 2022. Law No 131/2025/QH15, in force from 1 April 2026, amended articles including 4, 8, 16, 22, 42, 49, 50, 51, 54, 55, 65, 67, 74, 89, 96, 97, 99 and 100. Reading 11/VBHN-VPQH alone for those articles gives the wrong answer.

UniLaw checks each provision against both instruments before advising on it.

The decrees Vietnam intellectual property lawyers read alongside the Law

Decree No 65/2023/ND-CP of 23 August 2023 details the industrial property provisions and the measures for implementing them. Decree No 17/2023/ND-CP of 26 April 2023 does the same for copyright and related rights. Decree No 105/2006/ND-CP details protection of intellectual property rights and state management in the field.

All three were issued before Law No 131/2025/QH15, so where the amended article and the decree diverge, the statute governs and the decree has to be read subject to it.

Assignment and licensing: what must be recorded

Article 148 draws a line that costs money when it is missed.

Clause 1: for industrial property rights established by registration, an assignment contract is effective only once recorded with the industrial property authority. An unrecorded assignment does not transfer the right.

Clause 2: a licence of the same rights takes effect as the parties agree between themselves.

Clause 3: but a licence — except a trademark licence — must be recorded with the authority to have legal effect against third parties. A patent licence that is not recorded binds the two parties and no one else.

Clause 4: a licence terminates automatically if the licensor’s industrial property right terminates. A licensee paying royalties on a lapsed patent has no contract to enforce.

What Vietnam intellectual property lawyers do on an enforcement file

Enforcement runs on three tracks and they are not alternatives to each other.

Administrative action through the market surveillance and customs authorities is the fastest route against counterfeits in trade. Decree No 105/2006/ND-CP details protection of intellectual property rights and the state management side of it.

Civil proceedings give damages and injunctive relief. Jurisdiction with a foreign element is governed by Articles 469 to 472 of the Civil Procedure Code consolidated as No 21/VBHN-VPQH. Where the parties have an arbitration agreement, the Law on Commercial Arbitration consolidated as No 60/VBHN-VPQH applies and Article 16 requires that agreement in writing.

Criminal action is available for counterfeiting at scale, and it changes the negotiating position even where it is not pursued.

For a commercial claim arising alongside the IP claim, Article 319 of the Commercial Law consolidated as No 113/VBHN-VPQH gives two years from infringement.

The evidential work is the same on all three tracks: establish the right, establish the act, establish the link to the defendant, and preserve the chain of custody from the first purchase sample onwards.

IP in an investment or M&A transaction

Where IP moves as part of a corporate transaction, the Investment Law No 143/2025/QH15 sits alongside the IP Law. Article 21 clause 3 requires a foreign investor to register a capital contribution or share purchase before the shareholder register changes in the situations it lists, and an IP-heavy target is often in a conditional market-access line under Article 8.

Due diligence on a Vietnamese target should confirm three things in the register itself, not in the data room: that the titles are in the target’s name, that renewal deadlines are met, and that no invalidation or termination proceeding is on foot under Articles 96 and 97 as amended.

What to send when instructing

A first assessment is faster with these:

• The mark, specification, design drawings or work concerned.
• Any Vietnamese application or registration number, and the filing date.
• Foreign registrations relied on for priority, with dates.
• The date of first use in Vietnam, and evidence of it.
• Any office action, opposition or invalidation request received.
• For infringement: samples, purchase records, and where the goods were found.
• For a transaction: the target’s IP schedule and renewal dates.

If the filing date is close, send that first. The first-to-file principle in Article 90 does not wait for a complete file.

Intellectual property research map

• Trademarks and domain names — The ASANO trademark dispute · Lafarge v Han Pham, domain name.
• Registration — Patent attorney in Vietnam · Software patents · IPR services.
• Copyright — Copyright and IP law in Vietnam · Software copyright · Copyright protection.
• Infringement — IP infringement · Copyright infringement.
• Litigation — IP litigation · Patent litigation.
• Category index: IP Law · International IP Law.

Judgments UniLaw has analysed, including trademark and copyright decisions, are published at case.unilaw.vn.

Other expertise you may find relevant

• Vietnam corporate lawyers — company name conflicts with trademarks.
• Vietnam investment lawyers — IP contributed as capital.
• AI lawyer services — authorship and training data questions.
• Vietnam real estate lawyers — project branding and site assets.
• Vietnam M&A lawyers — intellectual property in a target and the transfer chain.

How UniLaw handles an intellectual property instruction

First, which regime applies to each step is fixed: filings before 1 April 2026 keep the old substantive rules, but formality examination and the opposition period follow Law No 131/2025/QH15.

Second, the representative position is settled, because Article 89 clause 2 leaves a non-resident foreign applicant no self-filing route.

Third, for a trademark, the sign is tested against Article 74 clause 2 as amended, including the new point (dd1) on Vietnamese national geographical origin.

Fourth, for a defence or a challenge, the grounds are taken from Articles 96 and 97 as amended, not from the 2022 consolidation.

Fifth, the enforcement route — administrative, civil or criminal — is chosen before evidence is gathered, because each needs a different record.

Request an initial assessment from Vietnam intellectual property lawyers

Send the mark, patent or work concerned, the filing or registration numbers if any, the date of first use in Vietnam, and any office action or infringement evidence. UniLaw will tell you which regime governs each step, whether a representative must be appointed, and what the realistic enforcement route is.

Fees are agreed in a written legal services contract before work begins, with the scope and the basis of charging set out in it.

Offices: Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang. Email legal@unilaw.vn.

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