Seminar on improving the quality of trademark application examination at NOIP

On October 31, 2020, the Trademark Examination Center (TEC) and the International Trademark and Geographical Indications Examination Center (ITGIEC) under the NOIP jointly held the seminar on "Issues to be resolved in order to improve the quality of trademark registration examination" in Sa Pa town, Lao Cai province.

NOIP Director General Dinh Huu Phi, Deputy Director General Le Ngoc Lam and all officials and employees of the two Centers and representatives of some related units under the NOIP  attended the seminar.

The seminar is held in the context of the number of IP registration applications in general and trademark registration applications in particular (including national, international, collective and certification marks) submitted to the NOIP increases significantly each year, despite the TEC and ITGIEC have strived for speeding up the processing of applications, but the results have not met the actual requirements, backlog is quite a lot. There are many reasons affecting the quality and quantity of application examination and the NOIP hopes that the participants will discuss thoroughly all issues and  can offer some practical solutions to overcome the above situation.

Topics presented and discussed at the seminar included the followings:

• Evaluation of indistinctive signs on trademark samples;
• Some problems in examination of collective, certification marks containing place names, other signs indicating geographical origin;
• To reach consensus on viewpoint to evaluate the similarity of a number of goods/service pairs according to current regulations;
• To evaluate the distinctive ability of trademarks through widespread use and recognition;
• Some issues related to the protection of two-letter trademarks;
• Some proposals related to NOIP’s Notification regarding results of substantive examination of trademark application.