Handling 1,460 cases of intellectual property rights infringement
In the context of economic integration and global competition, the protection of intellectual property rights (IP) becomes especially important and becomes a top concern. However, reality also shows that the situation of IP rights infringement in our country is becoming more and more complicated with many sophisticated tricks. While consumers' awareness is not really complete, distinguishing the real from the fake is becoming difficult for consumers.
The concentrated acts of violation are mainly: Counterfeit trademark goods, infringement of industrial property rights on goods, signs, business means; acts of unfair competition on labels, designs of product packaging and acts of unfair competition related to registration of domain names on the internet.
With the aim of comprehensive, regular and timely coordination to improve the effectiveness of IPR enforcement activities; building an IPR enforcement mechanism to meet the requirements of economic development, social and international integration, 9 ministries / sectors including: Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuracy have jointly signed and implemented the cooperation program to prevent IPR infringement (program 168).
According to the latest information from the Inspectorate of the Ministry of Science and Technology on the performance of Program 168 Phase III (2019-2023) in 2020 and the operation plan in 2021, it is shown that in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic situation, complicated developments, ministries and branches have active activities in preventing and combating IPR infringement. In 2020, functional forces of ministries and branches handled and resolved 1,460 cases of IPR infringement, of which 1,302 were handled by administrative measures and prosecuted, investigated, and tried 158 cases with 269 defendants, total fines of over 25 billion VND.
The IP rights enforcement forces confiscated and requested the removal of the infringing element and destroyed tens of thousands of infringing material evidences; request to change many business names, change domain information, return domain names. Ministries and agencies (market management agencies, economic police, customs, specialized inspectors) have also coordinated handle many large-scale and complex cases.
In addition, cooperation in the development and implementation of policies and laws is one of the highlights of Program 168. In 2020, ministries and sectors that are members of Program 168 have closely and effectively coordinated in the implementation of the National Strategy on Intellectual Property and the formulation of a Law on Amending and Supplementing a Number of Articles of the IP Law in order to build a synchronous, unified, feasible legal system that complies with international commitments that Vietnam has signed, participated in and ensured the harmony between the interests of IPR owners, the interests of the State and the interests of the community.
At the same time, actively cooperate in IP propaganda and awareness raising for enterprises and communities and capacity building training for IPR enforcement agencies. Ministries and branches have also implemented the reporting and sharing regime to help obtain fairly comprehensive and comprehensive statistics on the prevention and control of IPR infringement nationwide. These results contribute significantly to improving the efficiency of IP protection and enforcement in Vietnam. |