Filing an opposition or a third party observation in Vietnam: Which option is better?

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If you believe that a trademark application in Vietnam is likely to conflict with or adversely affect your prior rights, or that it does not meet the criteria for protection, you may submit your opinions on the grant of an exclusive right to such a trademark application to the Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam (IP VIETNAM) after it has been published in the industrial property gazette of Vietnam. The Vietnam IP Law 2022 gives third parties two options for voicing their opinions on pending trademark applications in Vietnam: (i) third party observation and/or (ii) opposition.

 1. What are a trademark opposition and an observation?

• Opposition is an administrative procedure that allows a third party to challenge the validity of an industrial property registration application and then request the competent agency to refuse the grant of a protection title, provided that the opponent provides the legal grounds to prove his case.
• Third party observation is a procedure that allows the public to provide their opinion on industrial property registration applications, from which the examining agency makes decisions on applications under examination. Third-party’s observation often serve as a reference source for examiners during the application examination process.

2. Filing an opposition or filing a third-party observation, what are similarites and differences?

A major distinction between filing an opposition and a third-party observation is the deadline set out for each procedure. For an opposition, there is a strict filing deadline (i.e 5 months from the publication date of the trademark application. For industrial design and patent applications, the deadline is 04 months and 09 months respectively). Meanwhile, no hard deadline is set out for filing observations. An observation may be filed during the pendency of a trademark application in Vietnam from its publication until IP VIETNAM issues a Decision to grant a trademark registration certificate.

3. What are grounds to file an opposition/observation?

A trademark application may be denied registration in Vietnam on absolute and/or relative grounds. Absolute grounds refer to the categories of signs that are excluded from registration by specific provisions of the trademark law. Relative grounds refer to those that arise due to the existence of prior rights, whether in the form of registered marks or otherwise. Generally, an opposition/observation may be filed on the following grounds:

• Descriptiveness: i.e., an application trademark functions solely to provide information about the goods and services affiliated therewith the trademark;
• Distinctiveness: i.e., an application trademark is not capable of being represented graphically and of distinguishing the goods/services of one individual or organization from those of other individuals or organizations;
• Deceptiveness: i.e., an application trademark is of such a nature as to deceive the public (for instance, as to the nature, quality or geographic origin of the goods or services);
• Conflict with prior registration and/or prior right established through use.

• Trademark Oppositions in Vietnam
• Questions on trademark oppositions in Vietnam
• Opposing an Application Mark without prior rights in Vietnam, is it possible? 
• What strategies to reclaim unregistered trademark rights in Vietnam?

The bottom line

If the deadline for filing an opposition has missed, the door has not shut down. You may still have chance to file observation with IP VIETNAM voicing your opinions on pending trademark applications under observation procedure. Even if the observation you have made is not used to bar an application from maturing into registration, an invalidation action is still available against the third party’s trademark.