Vietnam’s Circular 11: Guidance on application of remedies

Currently, organizations and individuals that commit administrative violations in the field of industrial property shall be subject to one of the main forms of sanction: a warning or fine, and additional penalties may also be applied. In addition to the main and additional penalties, violating organizations and individuals may also be forced to apply one or more remedial measures.

In particular, according to Circular No. 11/2015/TT-BKHCN of the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam, remedies specified at Point a, Clause 3, Article 3 of Decree No. 99/2013/NĐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government shall be taken as follows:

- Forcible removal of infringing elements shall be applied to material evidence and means used for commission of violations which are products, goods, signboards, means of business, and transaction documents bearing signs of infringement upon industrial property rights or misleading trade indications. One or more than one method, such as detachment, disassembly, cut-off, erasure, abrasion or other appropriate measures, may be used to remove infringing elements from material evidence and means used for commission of violations;

- Forcible change of information in domain name or return of domain name shall be applied to cases where the requester for infringement handling and the party requested to be handled for infringements cannot reach agreement under Clause 2, Article 27 of Decree No. 99/2013/NĐ-CP and the latter fails to terminate its act of registering, appropriating the domain name use right or using an infringing domain name;

- Forcible change of enterprise name or removal of infringing elements from enterprise name shall be applied to cases where the party requested to be handled for infringements fail to terminate its act of using an infringing enterprise name or fails to carry out procedures for changing an infringing enterprise name according to the notice of the business registry office or the agreement between the parties.

View relevant provisions at Circular No. 11/2015/TT-BKHCN of the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam, effective from August 11, 2015.

Thu Ba

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