Minister Nguyen Quan met with Mr. Peter Fowler
In the meeting, Mr. Peter Fowler expressed his thanks the Minister for spending his time on meeting him and informing the Minister of some results on cooperation activities which USPTO has implemented with the National Office of Intellectual Property (NOIP) over the past time. Cooperative relations between NOIP and USPTO has been established since 1995 and gradually promoted. NOIP and USPTO have carried out activities of providing IP information, organizing the delegation of senior officials to visit and work, providing information and responding inquiries from the US’s Government and enterprises on Vietnam’s IP related issues within the framework of many different activities, inviting Vietnam’s officials to participate in IP training courses organized by the US in coordination with other partners,...
Minister Nguyen Quan congratulated Mr. Peter Fowler to be assigned the Intellectual Property Attaché in charge of Southeast Asian region of USPTO and believed a lot that with his experience, Mr. Peter Fowler would provide efficient support for IP activities in Vietnam. At the same time, the Minister highly appreciated support USPTO in particular, the US Government in general have provided for Vietnam’s Science and Technology.
“Vietnam has paid special attention to IP rights of organizations and individuals. In 2005 Vietnam adopted the Law on IP and in 2009 the Law was amended and added based on the updated situation. Vietnam also amended the Criminal Law in order to have sanction forms for cases of IP violations. Therefore, in recent years the protection and enforcement of IP rights in Vietnam have achieved certain advancements”, Minister Nguyen Quan said.
Minister Nguyen Quan shared that “Vietnam has just got out of the threshold of an underdeveloped country whose development level is still low so IP violations are unavoidable issues. However, Vietnam’s Party and State have always paid special attention to the protection and enforcement of IP rights, which are in line with international standards as WTO’s TRIPS treaty. Vietnam has taken efforts to make IP become a tool to promote the economic growth and S&T development”.
The Minister expressed his desires to continue receiving cooperation and support from Mr. Peter Fowler as well USPTO and the US’s Government for fostering staff, establishing the enforcement system for IP rights, investing technical equipment and investing in advocacy fields in order to communicate with the public on roles of protecting IP rights in life, raise awareness of organizations and individuals on Vietnam’s IP,... The Minister hoped the Memorandum of Understanding between Vietnam’s NOIP and USPTO would be signed soon. This would be a new development step, which would mark a level of higher cooperation between the two agencies. The implementation of the Memorandum would bring in the high efficiency; support the development of IP systems of the two countries, contributing to promote good relationships between the two agencies and Governments of the two countries.