The Intellectual Property Strategy of Vietnam to 2030 has been promulgated by the Prime Minister under Decision No. 1068/QD-TTg dated August 22, 2020. One of the important tasks and solutions to realize the strategic goals is “forming a culture of intellectual property in society”. What is IP culture and what must be done to build IP protection in Vietnam? The article mentions some general issues related to this relatively new concept in Vietnam.
General overview of intellectual property culture
In the current international integration context, intellectual property (IP) has been affirmed as “an effective tool for economic development and prosperity” (Mr. Kamil Idris, former General Director of the Group) World Intellectual
Property Organization), is a driving force for economic growth, an indicator for assessing technology development, and for attracting technology transfer and foreign investment.
In order for an intellectual property system to operate effectively, in addition to establishing adequate mechanisms and policies to protect and enforce intellectual property rights, it is indispensable for the active and correct participation of the owners. body in the system. Like other fields, in order for subjects to understand and properly apply intellectual property standards, it is necessary to create a full and correct awareness of intellectual property, because intellectual property affects all economic, cultural and social fields and affects all organizations and individuals in society.
Up to now, no official concept of IP culture has been proposed, but based on the concept of culture and the concept of IP, it can be said that IP culture is a combination of mental phenomena that have obtained from human activities in IP related matters. Intellectual property culture here mainly refers to people’s awareness, attitudes, beliefs and values regarding IP issues and how behavior is related to IP issues. It can also be said that IP culture means the culture of people who know how to protect their own IP rights and respect the IP rights of others. Intellectual property culture, in addition to bearing the basic characteristics of culture in general, can be distinguished by the following three specific characteristics:
- Firstly, IP culture always arouses people’s curiosity. Curiosity is the source to create inventions, creative results that can be patented.
- Second, IP culture stimulates the pursuit of interests. The nature of IP is a tool to pursue interests. If there is no competition for economic interests, there is no need to establish an IP protection in Vietnam. The result of creating an IP culture is not to teach politeness but to create a “gentleman” in competition, improve capacity and integrity in participating in competition in domestic and international markets.
- Third, IP culture will build trust. IP culture can stimulate people to pursue benefits, but besides that, it does not encourage people to lie and take advantage to get benefits. Intellectual property culture is the establishment of rules to prevent fraudulent acts in science and business, helping people to build trust and trust in honesty to seek benefits.
The external manifestation of IP culture is the air flow in society created from people’s awareness of IP issues, and the essence of IP culture is the awareness of IP issues formed in the past. society. Awareness of IP is people’s perception of issues related to IP. As a simple example, if an enterprise believes that IP rights are its lifeline, that business will pay special attention to IP activities and will know how to effectively use the protection mechanism. IP protection in Vietnam in order to enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises. On the contrary, if an enterprise thinks that IP issues do not have much to do with the development of the business, it will inevitably not attach importance to IP activities.
Necessity of fostering an IP culture
in Vietnam, an IP system works effectively only when the whole society has a sense of respect and protection of IP rights. IP culture can be used as a powerful tool to solve many problems in society only when it is comprehensively viewed from many perspectives, balanced and properly nurtured. .
For the development of a country
The world economic development is really “on track” when the intellectual property of each country and region is comprehensively protected and effectively exploited. In order for each country and region to plan for economic development through expanding investment, encouraging the creation of new technologies, and promoting technological autonomy, IP culture is an indispensable social foundation in the development of new technologies. promote these activities, and at the same time contribute to preventing and limiting counterfeiting and piracy. Moreover, a country with a good IP culture background will be an important advantage to attract a lot of foreign investment capital, an important condition for participating in bilateral and multilateral cooperation agreements.
For businesses and organizations
The creation and exploitation of IP culture as a “strategic weapon” will help businesses maintain and enhance their competitiveness and reputation in the market. An enterprise with a background in IP culture, having core values of production and business activities from intellectual property, focusing on investment in R&D activities, will attract high-quality human resources who know apply and create knowledge in the production and business process. For organizations, especially research organizations, forming an IP culture will motivate employees to be more active in innovation, creating valuable intellectual property for the development of employees. development of society.
For education
The strong development of the industrial revolution 4.0 is changing the perception of the young generation about success. Young people not only enjoy the intellectual fruits of the previous generation, but also directly participate in and establish the development process of society. Youth’s dreams of science, technology and the arts, as well as their efforts to make those dreams come true, are the source of innovation. Therefore, the education in Vietnam, dissemination and awareness raising of IP protectionshould be carried out in the direction of encouraging the creation of new intellectual property, promoting innovation and creating an IP culture.
In Japan’s strategy to become an IP-based country, the government has implemented systematic education focused on nurturing each Japanese person as a human resource to develop and utilize. intellectual property. In Japan, educational standards are established based on the School Education Act to ensure that a certain level of education is provided evenly across the country, each school will develop its own curriculum. based on those standards
You can read about Trademark registration in Vietnam here.
You can find the list of Vietnam IP Firms here.