In particular, the Law amending and supplementing several articles of the Intellectual Property Law was passed, effective from January 1, 2023, marking an important step forward in perfecting the institution of intellectual property in the direction to encourage the creation, protection, management and exploitation of intellectual property.
According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) assessment, Vietnam has a legal framework for intellectual property in line with international standards and development. Vietnam's approach to innovation policy has produced remarkable results, for example, Vietnam is ranked 48th among 132 economies in the ranking of the Global Innovation Index (GII).
This year, World Intellectual Property Day (April 26) is themed "Women and intellectual property - Accelerating Innovation and Creativity", to affirm and honour the role of women in creative innovation activities. The number of female researchers in research institutions nationwide reached about 44.8% in 2016.
According to intellectual property experts, it is of concern that the number and quality of Vietnamese patents are still modest. From 2013 to 2022, although the average annual growth rate of the number of patent applications by Vietnamese subjects increased faster than that of foreign subjects, the total number of applications filed by foreign subjects was eight times higher than by Vietnamese subjects.
Vietnamese single subjects mainly registered for the protection of industrial designs and trademarks, which showed that Vietnam did not have many products containing high intellectual content.
In addition, the number of transferred intellectual property rights objects accounts for a modest proportion compared to the number of applications filed and protection titles granted, proving that the management and exploitation of intellectual property are not effective. Meanwhile, reality shows that patents can help businesses create a significant competitive advantage in the market.
The "bottleneck" of the above situation is pointed out that Vietnam's technology absorption capacity is still limited, causing technologies not to have the opportunity to apply effectively. Many domestic enterprises are only interested in technologies that have been completed and are ready to be put into production but are less interested in purchasing laboratory-scale and pilot-scale technologies, to continue investing in development because they fear risks.
The cooperation between research institutes, universities and enterprises is not close, not many businesses invested funds or actively ordered scientists and research agencies to solve specific problems of enterprises. Some businesses do not yet believe in technology created by domestic scientists and research institutions, so they still choose to buy foreign technology.
It can be said that the number of patent applications represents the technological potential, creativity and economic development. Therefore, it is necessary to continue to have solutions to support the creation of intellectual property, especially inventions, and to exploit inventions to serve enterprises in technological innovation.
Many scientists believe that it is necessary to increase resources for applied research, invest in long-term science and technology tasks, and connect scientists from basic research to trial production at the pilot scale and production at the industrial scale.
That means turning intellectual property into a finished technology product ready for commercialisation. The combination between scientific researchers and businesses is not close due to the lack of intermediary organisations to introduce technological products, to places where they need to be applied.
Therefore, intermediary organisations of the science and technology market need to be formed and developed to support connection and technology transfer.
In addition, the State needs to support enterprises in exploiting patent information, reviewing regulations on intellectual property policies for research products using the state budget, and on that basis, specifying mechanisms and methods of benefit sharing in the direction of focusing on exploiting and putting inventions into production and business.
