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Intellectual rights law ‘crucial' for competition
The effective protection of intellectual property (IP) rights would encourage innovation, healthy competition and development in Viet Nam, experts said at a two-day seminar entitled "Intellectual Property Rights and Viet Nam's Deep Integration into the World Economy".
Jennie Ness, regional IP attache at the US Department of Commerce, said IP assets in the US accounted for 47 per cent of total assets and were worth over US$5 trillion.
She said a third of all private economic activities in the US were protected by IP and that copyright infringements cost the world's economy $650 billion annually.
Microsoft said 97 per cent of its total assets were IP protected, while 70 per cent of Walt Disney's are protected.
Those attending the seminar in Ha Noi, which ended yesterday, said that Luc Ngan lychee saw a price increase of between 25 per cent and 200 per cent after the Bac Giang Company gained certification.
Trade mark protection also helped increase enterprises' earnings, the seminar heard.
Ho Thuy Ngoc, Deputy Head of the Foreign Trade University's International Education Faculty, said establishing a trade mark was crucial to building a brandname.
She said Microsoft and Coca Cola's trademarks last year were valued at $56.6 billion and $69 billion, respectively.
"However, Vietnamese companies have not fully acknowledge this issue," she said.
A survey of 500 businesses in the country shows that around 56 per cent are aware of the importance of IP but that one in 10 spends just 5 per cent of their investment budgets on IP development.
Statistics released in 2007 showed that just three firms had applied that year for IP protection in the US, while the number of North American firms in the country doing so was 728. Meanwhile, the number of Vietnamese firms in the US registering their trademarks was one-tenth of the number of American companies.
"It means that Vietnamese companies have not benefited from using IP protection, while foreign ones have," she said.
Experts at the seminar said the Vietnamese Government should help firms looking to do business abroad with IP protection.
Ness said businesses should give priority to IP protection and that governemts should have policies in place to encourage innovation.
The seminar heard that IP protection could boost profits, generate jobs, raise incomes and contribute to a country's development.
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