The Intellectual Property Law was passed by the Vietnamese National Assembly on June 19, 2009 and came into force on January 1, 2010. This law aimed to amend and supplement some articles of the former Intellectual Property Law passed in 2005.
One of the new law major provisions’ is, firstly, to establish time limits for examining industrial property registration applications. According to article 119 of the said law for instance, the form examination should not be longer than a month. The law also sets up time limits for the substantive examination and the re-examination, if need be.
Moreover, conditions for industrial property representation service business are foreseen by the law. Article 154 thus provides that this representation mission shall not be carried out by foreign law firms and so reserves this area to local lawyers.
