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Legislative Implementation of Flexibilities - Viet Nam

Title:Articles 132, 133, 136, 137 and 145-146 of the Law on Intellectual Property No. 50/2005/QH11 of 29/11/2005
Field of IP:Patents
Type of flexibility:Compulsory licenses and government use
Summary table:PDF

Provisions of Law

Article 132.- Elements limiting industrial property rights

Under this Law, industrial property rights may be limited by the following elements:

1. Right of prior users to inventions or industrial designs;

2. Obligations of owners, including:

a/ To pay remunerations to the authors of inventions, industrial designs or layout-designs;

b/ To use inventions or marks.

3. Licensing of inventions under decisions of state competent agencies.

Article 133.- Rights to use inventions on behalf of the State

1. Ministries and ministerial-level agencies shall have the right to, on behalf of the State, use or permit other organizations or individuals to use inventions in domains under their respective management for public and non-commercial purposes, national defense, security, disease prevention and treatment and nutrition for the people, and to meet other urgent social needs without having to obtain permission of invention owners or their licensees under exclusive contracts (hereinafter referred to as holders of exclusive right to use inventions) according to Articles 145 and 146 of this Law.

2. The use of inventions mentioned in Clause 1 of this Article shall be limited within the scope of and under the conditions for licensing provided for in Clause 1, Article 146 of this Law, except where such inventions are created by using material-technical facilities and funds from the state budget.

Article 136.- Obligation to use inventions and marks

1. Owners of inventions are obliged to manufacture protected products or apply protected processes to satisfy the requirements of national defense, security, disease prevention and treatment and nutrition for the people or to meet other social urgent needs. When there arise the needs mentioned in this Clause but invention owners fail to perform such obligation, the competent state agency may license such inventions to others without permission of invention owners according to the provisions of Articles 145 and 146 of this Law.

2. Owners of marks are obliged to use such marks continuously. Where a mark has not been used for 5 consecutive years or more, the ownership right to such mark shall be invalidated according to the provisions of Article 95 of this Law.

Article 137.- Obligations to authorize the use of principal inventions for the purpose of using dependent inventions

1. A dependent invention means an invention created based on another invention (hereinafter referred to as principal invention) and may only be used on the condition that the principal invention is also used.

2. Where the owner of a dependent invention can prove that his/her invention makes an important technical advance as compared with the principal invention and has a great economic significance, he/she may request the owner of the principal invention to license such principal invention with reasonably commercial price and conditions.

Where the owner of a principal invention fails to satisfy the request of the owner of a dependent invention without justifiable reasons, the concerned competent state agency may license such invention to the owner of the dependent invention without permission of the owner of the principal invention according to the provisions of Articles 145 and 146 of this Law.

Article 145.- Bases for compulsory licensing of inventions

1. In the following cases, the right to use an invention may be licensed to another organization or individual under a decision of the competent state agency defined in Clause 1, Article 147 of this Law without permission from the holder of exclusive right to use such invention:

a/ Where the use of such invention is for public and non-commercial purposes or in service of national defense, security, disease prevention and treatment and nutrition for people or other urgent needs of the society.

b/ Where the holder of exclusive right to use such invention fails to fulfill the obligations to use such invention provided for in Clause 1, Article 136 and Clause 5, Article 142 of this Law upon the expiration of a 4-year duration as from the date of filing the invention registration application and the expiration of a 3-year duration as from the date of granting the invention patent;

c/ Where a person who wishes to use the invention fails to reach an agreement with the holder of exclusive right to use such invention on the entry of an invention license contract in spite of his/her efforts made within a reasonable time for negotiation on satisfactory commercial price and conditions;

d/ Where the holder of exclusive right to use such invention is considered having performed anticompetition

practices banned by competition law.

2. The holder of exclusive right to use an invention may request the termination of the use right when the bases for licensing provided for in Clause 1 of this Article no longer exist and are unlikely to recur, provided that such termination shall not be prejudicial to the invention licensee;

Article 146.- Conditions of limitation on the right to use inventions licensed under compulsory decisions

1. The right to use an invention licensed under a decision of a competent state agency must be

compliant with the following conditions:

a/ Such licensed use right is non-exclusive;

b/ Such licensed use right is only limited to a scope and duration sufficient to achieve the licensing objectives, and largely for the domestic market, except for the cases specified at Point d, Clause 1, Article 145 of this Law. For an invention in semi-conductor technology, the licensing thereof shall be only for public and non-commercial purposes or for handling anti-competition practices according to the provisions of the competition law;

c/ The licensee must neither assign nor sub-license such right to others, except where the assignment is effected together with the transfer of his/her business establishment;

d/ The licensee shall have to pay the holder of exclusive right to use the invention a satisfactory compensation depending on the economic value of such use right in each specific case, and compliant with the compensation bracket set by the Government.

2. Apart from the conditions specified in Clause 1 of this Article, the right to use an invention licensed in any of the cases specified in Clause 2, Article 137 of this Law must also satisfy the following conditions:

a/ The holder of exclusive right to use the principal invention shall also be licensed to use the dependent invention on reasonable terms;

b/ The licensee of the right to use the principal invention must not assign such right, except where the assignment is effected together with all rights to the dependent invention.

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