August 5, 2010

Vietnam agriculture moves up with intellectual property rights

Vietnam is further developing its farm sector with the introduction of intellectual property rights that has helped to raise the value of farm products, develop agricultural production and increase farmers' incomes.

The protection of intellectual property has had a positive influence on socio-economic development in rural areas by generating jobs for local people and providing them with stable incomes. However, intellectual property rights for Vietnamese farm products have not attracted much attention as among the 964 specialties nationwide, only 19 geographical indications, seven trademarks and 20 collective trademarks have been recognised.

Nevertheless, most exported Vietnamese agricultural produce is not processed and lack established trademarks; therefore, their prices are lower than others in the world market. However, analysts say that with established trademarks, Vietnamese farm produce will be able to compete with overseas products but there needs to be more cooperation between farmers, scientists, businesses and the State in order to promote intellectual property protection.

In the 2005-2010 period, the Ministry of Science and Technology's Department for Intellectual Property carried out a programme to support the development of intellectual property rights. Under the programme, 53 projects have been undertaken to help with the procedures to register for intellectual property rights as well as designing programmes to promote products, building new models of management models and developing property rights.