Vietnam Trademark Registration - Vietnam Investment Services

Vietnam Trademark Registration

According to Clause 2 Article 16 of the Law on Commerce 2005, foreign traders have rights to establish representative offices in Vietnam. However, foreign representative offices in Vietnam only can conduct some commercial promotion activities but not profitable activities as prescribed in the law. Therefore, a foreign representative office in Vietnam has fewer tax duties than an enterprise.

According to Clause 3 Article 17 of the Law on Commerce 2005, foreign representative offices have rights to recruit Vietnamese or foreign employees to work there. Due to that, personal income tax is the only tax duty of a foreign representative office.

To determine the payable tax, foreign representative offices have to do the tax audit. Tax audit is the process of calculating and checking all the revenues and expenses during the tax term to establish grounds for declaring and paying tax. Simultaneously, tax audit may be the grounds for tax exempt, reduction and refund.

Personal income tax audit for foreign representative offices:

Taxable incomes of people working at representative offices are wages regulated at Clause 2 Article 3 of the Law on Personal income tax 2007. Duties to declare, deduct, pay and audit personal income tax for workers of a representative office belong to it.

During the tax audit process, a representative office could consider and list out kind of incomes eligible for tax exemption or tax reduction to claim for it. According to Clause 1 Article 62 of the Law on Tax administration:

“If taxpayers determine by themselves tax amounts to be exempted or reduced, a tax exemption or reduction dossier includes:

Tax declaration form;
Documents related to determination of the tax amount to be exempted or reduced.”

Taxpayers are residents and non-residents:

Residents:
Being present in Vietnam for 183 days or more in a calendar year or 12 consecutive months counting from the first date of their presence in Vietnam;
Having a place of habitual residence in Vietnam, which is a registered place of permanent residence or a rented house in Vietnam under a definite contract;
Tax period: Annual.
Non-residents:
People who do not satisfy the above conditions;
Tax period: Upon each time of income generation.

Besides that, tax audit also helps representative offices establish grounds for tax refund if paid tax amounts are larger than payable tax amounts. Tax audit is a complicated duty related to many legal regulations.

If clients have any question about tax audit and tax law, please feel free to contact Tenze IC. We are willing to give legal advice and support you during the procedures!

Personal income tax audit for foreign representative offices:

“If taxpayers determine by themselves tax amounts to be exempted or reduced, a tax exemption or reduction dossier includes:

Tax declaration form;
Documents related to determination of the tax amount to be exempted or reduced.”

Taxpayers are residents and non-residents:

Residents:
Being present in Vietnam for 183 days or more in a calendar year or 12 consecutive months counting from the first date of their presence in Vietnam;
Having a place of habitual residence in Vietnam, which is a registered place of permanent residence or a rented house in Vietnam under a definite contract;
Tax period: Annual.
Non-residents:
People who do not satisfy the above conditions;
Tax period: Upon each time of income generation.

If clients have any question about tax audit and tax law, please feel free to contact Tenze IC. We are willing to give legal advice a Trademark is one of the intangible property but may bring a grand tangible value to enterprise’s business practices. According to the law, trademark is any sign used to distinguish goods or services of different organizations or individuals. That sign shall be a visible sign in the form of letters, words, drawings or images including holograms or combination thereof, represented in one or more colors. A visible sign which shall be eligible for protection when it is capable of distinguishing, does not deceive customers and does not conflict with protected rights of others such as: trademarks, trade names, geographical indications and industrial designs. Ordinarily, mark is often known as “brand”.

Before registering trademark, enterprise should access the trademark system to consider the ability to register trademark in comparison with other registered trademarks at the Intellectual Property agencies. After that, trademark owner shall consider to register trademark or not. Accessing trademark system also help to determine the ability to issue protection title. If trademark is not able to be granted the protection title, owner should emend the sign to get trademark protected legally and avoid wasting time but getting no result.

Documents required for accessing trademark: Clients only need to provide Tenze IC the trademark sample and the list of goods and services, Tenze IC will consult and preliminary access freely for clients.

Trademark registration services of Tenze IC:

Help clients in preliminary accessing trademark system freely. After that, if no similarity if found, we will officially access trademark system to get the final result and determine application choices for trademark registration at the National Office of Intellectual Property of Vietnam;
Consult and preliminary access trademark to determine the ability to apply for trademark registration;
Consult about signs which are identical with or confusing similar to others, which lead to impossibility of granting protection title;
Consult about trademark groups to avoid being denied of formality and contents during the accessing process at the National Office of Intellectual Property;
Consult about emending trademark to increase the opportunities of granting the protection title;
Consult about the time of establishment trademark rights: According to the laws of Vietnam and other countries, trademark rights are established on the basis of a decision to grant a protection title or the international registration recognition. This is the “first to file” principle, which is different from common law system in which trademark rights are based on the “right of prior users” principle;
Consult about protection scope of protection title: Trademark rights, particularly and intellectual property rights, generally, are protected according to state territory. That means a trademark which is registered in a country shall be protected in the territory of that country only, not automatically protected all over the world. Therefore, if enterprises wish to sell their goods and services in different countries, they should register enterprise’s trademarks in those countries to avoid disputes during business practices;
Consult about trademark application in different countries: consult about establishment of trademark rights, because in different countries, trademark rights are established by registration or usage;
Consult about direct trademark registration in each country or through Madrid international registration system, by which only one application needed to applied but nominate several countries. When applied through Madrid international system, first of all, trademark should be applied or registered in Vietnam, depends on that country belongs to Madrid Protocol or Madrid Agreement;
Represent for clients, enterprises, foreign clients to apply, adjust and extend the validity for Trademark Protection Title;
Analyze the validity of the Trademark Protection Title and the ability of violating protected trademark rights in Vietnam and other countries;
Negotiate, draft, examine and register trademark rights assignment contracts or trademark rights licenses contracts in Vietnam and other countries;
Consult about building and improving trademarks;
Deal with trademark infringements;
Protest against trademark application;
Conduct complaints about establishment and protection of trademark rights;
Cancel the effectiveness of the protection title complying with the law.

Trademark registration duration:

Formality examination duration: 01 months from the submitting day;

The National Office of Intellectual Property shall examine if the application form meets the standards of formality, samples, owner, application rights, grouping…

If the application form is qualified, the National Office of Intellectual Property shall issue a notice of acceptance and public the application.

If the application form is unqualified, the National Office of Intellectual Property shall issue a notice of refusal and emend requirement. Enterprise shall emend the application form as required and submit to the National Office of Intellectual Property.

Duration of publication of trademark application: 02 months from the day on which the notice of acceptance is issued.

Contents of publication of trademark application are information relevant to the valid application which are recorded on the notice of acceptance, trademark samples and the list of goods and services attached.

Contents examination duration: 09 months from the publication day.

The National Office of Intellectual Property examine trademark registration conditions and the ability to issue the protection title. If the trademark registration application is qualified, the National Office of Intellectual Property shall issue the notice of intended grant of the protection title for registered trademark.

If the trademark registration application is unqualified, the National Office of Intellectual Property shall issue the notice of refusal to grant the protection title. Enterprise shall consider and send a letter of complaints as well as evidences and grounds for granting the protection title.

Issuing duration: 02 – 03 months from the day on which granting fees and charges are submitted.

After receiving the granting decision, enterprise shall submit granting fees and get the trademark registration title.

Validity of protection of registered trademark: Trademark is protected within 10 years from the application submitting day and could be unlimited extended after the validity termination. Therefore, enterprise could own the trademark and this could be the value property throughout the business practices of the enterprise if it is extended every 10 years complying with the law.

If you have any concerns about trademark registration in Vietnam, please feel free to contact Tenze IC to get legal advices and to be supported during the procedures!

nd support you during the procedures!