Immediately upon discovering act(s) of infringement, owners are advised to request the infringing party or parties to stop performing, publishing, or displaying the related works in any form. Owners are also advised to seek a public correction and apology.

Request for administrative sanctions

Confiscate all counterfeit goods as well as raw materials, means of production, and trading of counterfeit goods on intellectual property.

Suspend business activities which violate the copyright.

The highest administrative fines for copyright and related right infringing activities are 250 million VND for individuals and 500 million VND for organizations.

Article 2 of Decree 131/2013/ND-CP dated October 16^th, 2013

File a lawsuit at the Court

The People’s Court resolves the following:

• Disputes over copyright of literature, artistic, and scientific works (including derivative works); disputes over ownership and disputes between co-authors
• Disputes over economic and moral rights between performers and investors in performances or disputes over remuneration between persons permitted to exploit economic rights and performers
• Disputes over interests when transmitting phonograms or video recordings to the public
• Disputes over copyright of inventions, marks, and industrial designs

Civil measures to be applied:

• End all acts of infringement
• Publicly apologize, correct, and rectify
• Perform civil obligations (return as a whole, damage compensation, etc.)
• Compensate financial losses to the infringed party
• Fully destroy or utilize products, means of production, and raw materials for non-commercial purposes without affecting the ability to exploit rights of owners of intellectual property

Article 26 and 30 of the 2015 Code of Civil Procedure 

Article 133 and 134 of the 2015 Code of Civil Procedure 

Request for criminal measures

The acts of copying works, phonograms, and video recordings; and the acts of distributing to the public copies of works, copies of phonograms, and copies of video recordings; will be handled with fines and imprisonment measures or banned from business.

Criminal measures are often time-consuming and, sometimes, the owner does not receive a satisfactory judgment.

Chapter XVII and XVIII of the 2005 Law on Intellectual Property, amended and supplemented in 2009

Article 225 of the 2015 Code of Civil Procedure, amended and supplemented in 2017 

Decree 131/2013 on sanctioning administrative violations of copyright and related rights

Our experience in copyright and related right dispute resolution

Registering for copyright is an advantage

A copyright certificate signifies that the work is solely the creativity of the author and not copied at the submission point.

Although it does not identify who is the owner of the work, the copyright certificate is still a big advantage when it comes to resolving disputes.

Determine the time of publishing
The author can prove his/her copyright by identifying the timeline of display or publicity of a work, such as:

• date of publication of newspapers;
• date of posting on websites or social networking platforms;
• date of displaying the work at a conference or exhibition;
• date of contract liquidation if hired another party to undertake;
• date of selling the product to the first customer;
• the date of importing inventory for sale at a store or branch;
• etc.

Reach an agreement with the original copyright owner

Asking for permission, agreeing to pay remuneration, and requesting to repurchase with the original copyright owner are always civilized acts ensuring long-term interests of the parties involved.

Even in the event of copyright infringement, the offending party can still publicly apologize, pay damages, and agree to pay costs or fees to the owner to continue using the copyright.

Repurchase copyright

In case long-term use of the work is needed, the parties may negotiate transfer of copyright.

Article 18, 19, 40, and 42 of the 2005 Law on Intellectual Property, amended and supplemented in 2009

PLF is the Organization of Industrial Property Representation in Vietnam – an entity authorized by the National Office of Intellectual Property to act on behalf of individuals and enterprises to establish and enforce intellectual property rights.