The press helps people raise awareness about intellectual property rights

On the morning of October 28, 2015, the National Office of Intellectual Property (NOIP) in collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) organized a seminar with the theme "Improving the effectiveness of IP rights enforcement and the role of the press".

Mr. Le Ngoc Lam, Deputy Director of the Department of Intellectual Property, Ministry of Science and Technology, said: Currently, Vietnam is a member of the WTO, and is in the process of concluding negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). With this agreement, the role of IP is very important and necessary in the negotiation process.

Our goal is to ensure the enforcement of intellectual property rights to create a healthy business environment for domestic and foreign investors.

In our efforts to improve legal policies related to intellectual property rights, we have received great support from Japan, a country with a large economy in the world. Japan has also supported Vietnam with many large and practical projects, including the project "Strengthening the capacity to enforce intellectual property rights in Vietnam".

The project was implemented from June 2012 and ended in March 2017. The objective of this project is to help strengthen the capacity of the National Office of Intellectual Property and relevant agencies of Vietnam in enhancing the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights; Support agencies and experts of the National Office of Intellectual Property in Vietnam to acquire knowledge and qualifications, thereby creating a force of lecturers to impart intellectual property knowledge to businesses and the public.

Overview of the Seminar. Photo: QM

At the seminar, Mr. Nguyen Van Bay, Director of the Research and Training Center, Department of Intellectual Property, Ministry of Science and Technology said: "Currently, Vietnam has completed the system of legal documents to protect intellectual property rights. However, the implementation of intellectual property rights has not yet played a leading role due to many different reasons such as: Officials have not met the requirements in the process of handling violations, coordination between functional agencies is not synchronized...".

At the seminar, delegates all agreed that the current situation of intellectual property rights violations in our country is very common, including press and media activities. In particular, the Internet environment has posed challenges to the protection of intellectual property rights of press agencies. Therefore, the role of press agencies is very important in the process of propaganda and raising awareness for people as well as businesses in the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

“Media agencies need to be flexible when introducing propaganda policies, integrating typical successful examples in protecting and managing intellectual property rights into stories that attract readers, so that propaganda can easily reach people's hearts,” Mr. Bay emphasized.

Sharing the same view, Mr. Nishiyama Tomohiro, Project Advisor "Strengthening capacity to enforce intellectual property rights in Vietnam" of JICA highly appreciated the role of the media in the process of enforcing intellectual property rights in Vietnam.

According to Mr. Nishiyama Tomohiro, the goal of this project is to widely disseminate intellectual property rights in Vietnam. However, it takes a lot of time for people to understand and realize it. Therefore, the press will be an important information channel, a bridge to convey the content of intellectual property rights to the people.

“Japan does not have many resources, but thanks to good protection of intellectual property rights, the Japanese economy has developed strongly. Therefore, I hope that the effective implementation of intellectual property rights will create conditions for businesses in Vietnam to develop further,” Mr. Nishiyama Tomohiro added.

According to Infonet