Vietnam, Japan share experience in invention commercialisation

Vietnamese and Japanese intellectual property experts gathered at a conference in Ho Chi Minh City on October 6 to share experience in completing copyright system and improving the quality and comercialisation of inventions.

Although the number of inventions and solutions submitted to Vietnam has increased, a few of which were made by domestic inventors. In 2016, patent applications by Japanese inventors were 13,578, while those by Vietnamese were 886.

Do Thien Hoang, Deputy Director of the Department of Intellectual Property’s Research and Training Centre said that applications from research institutes and universities were lower than those from individuals and enterprises.

He attributed the situation to a lack of specific guidelines in pricing, adding it takes a long time for the verification of inventions, causing a loss of investment and commercialisation opportunities.

At the same time, cooperation between inventors and businesses in commercialising inventions was still limited, he said.

Participants at the event shared the real situation in intellectual property registration, the commercialisation of inventions in Vietnam and Japan as well as the process of commercialising and developing technologies from inventions of businesses in Japan.

Japanese experts said that the intellectual property system of Japan was formed 130 years ago, while its national strategy on the field has been implemented since 2003. Therefore, Japan has been a leading country in intellectual property with 318,000 applications each year.

Kazazuo Hoshino, head of the international cooperation section of the Japan Patent Office (JPO) said that although Vietnam is 100 years behind Japan in intellectual property, the country can catch up with Japan in 5-10 years.

He held that Vietnam should make full use of its advantages and learn from other countries’ experience.

In recent years, Vietnam and Japan has organised many joint activities in improving the quality of verification of patent applications. In April 2016, the two sides launched a Patent Prosecution Highway project basing on verification results of JPO.

JPO has also trained 621 Vietnamese intellectual property experts and sent 92 specialists to Vietnam to give technical support.

VNA