Noteworthy points for IP attorneys and IP rights owners

IP is one of the most demanding professions in Vietnam and in the world. This is because even in the law industry, Intellectual Property is still a rather special category that is relatively ‘new’ in the world. Not many attorneys in this field in comparison to the rest of the law industry such as corporate, M&A, anti-dumping, marriage, investment, etc. However, as the intellectual world increasingly proves its influence in the world, the role of guardians of the values of intellectual property assets will also increase rapidly. Holding such a position, IP attorneys must pay more attention to their image, honor, working method, principle of operation, etc. On the other hand, IP rights owners should also learn the best method to extract the value of their IP assets in the coming time. The following article will show some advice for IP attorneys as well as IP rights owners in Vietnam.

Intellectual Property Attorney

As concepts such as copyright, trademark, brand, patent, invention, etc. are gradually popularized in the world community, the common term to phrase such concepts has also been popularized – Intellectual Property. Along with the term, the name of the guardians of Intellectual Property or IP is also well known – IP attorney or IP lawyer.

Not only because of the popularity of the government, but another fundamental reason why concepts such as trademarks, trade secrets, patents, etc. are gradually popularized is that businesses have realized the importance of these factors in their success.

They want to gain protection for these intellectual properties but are not entirely clear how. Accordingly, they turned to experienced and reputable Intellectual Property attorneys to help them achieve protection for their assets in their respective countries and internationally.

For some, Intellectual property attorneys include all the strengths of ordinary attorneys and many other characteristics of IP attorneys. Specifically, Intellectual Property attorneys are attorneys with many years of experience in many aspects of intellectual property law and have an extensive and broad knowledge to help clients achieve the protection of their IP assets.

The daily professional activity of IP attorneys is to provide legal advice on issues of copyright for works, industrial property rights for inventions, industrial designs, layout designs, trademarks. trademarks, geographical indications, etc.

In more detail, the main task of IP attorneys is to put the interests of their clients first by helping them determine the exact value of their intellectual property, thereby providing advice on the best method to protect those intellectual property assets in the most effective and cheapest manner.

In addition to providing specialized legal consulting services in the field of intellectual property, Intellectual Property Attorneys also provide industrial property representation services including:

• Representing organizations and individuals before competent state agencies on the establishment and enforcement of industrial property rights;
• Consulting on issues related to the procedure for establishing and enforcing industrial property rights;
• Support, and provide other services related to the procedure for establishing and enforcing industrial property rights.

The role of IP attorneys

In addition to providing services to clients as a business, in essence, IP attorneys also play a particularly important role: a bridge between people and knowledge about IP.

Specifically, the knowledge and concepts of IP in society are still relatively new. Although Governments are trying to promote the popularization of IP-related knowledge for the public, this process is still very slow and not very effective.

Accordingly, IP attorneys in the private sector will be a necessary complement to help accelerate this progress. Through exclusive interviews and regular appearances on television programs, newspapers, etc., IP attorneys are an effective channel to promote and disseminate the importance of IP to societies.

Advice for IP attorneys

It can be said that IP attorneys are not only a business with high income, but they are also representative of a high class with in-depth, expert knowledge.

Accordingly, the words, actions, language, gestures, and sentences of IP attorneys also need to comply with certain standards, representing a high class of intellectuals. With the current technological advancement, IP attorneys are in more and more need of taking their position seriously.

In terms of working principles, IP attorneys need to put the client’s best interests into their working principle. If the client is successful, the attorney will be successful. Attorneys must not look at the matter the other way around, to extract all they can from their customers regardless of their interests as this will be the first downfall in a ladder to the bottom pit of society.

Treating clients the way their problems are ours, their success are our success will allow IP attorneys to devote themselves to finding ways to assist clients no matter the time and place.

Reaffirming to customers the importance of IP

Some attorneys just take applications from clients and do what they are told. No matter how well the attorney does a good job, the communication between the client and the company is still limited. This is true for most of the applications where the parties have not even met each other.

Attorneys and clients only understand each other through monotonous Internet chats and can’t connect to each other deep enough so that the customers are return customers. This needs to be improved.

IP attorneys should not only focus on the current issue, but instead, they should try to remind and make clients understand the importance of current IP assets, as well as the importance of other IP assets in the client’s arsenal they may have because IP is money.

Achieving that, customers will have a deep understanding of IP. Not only achieving the goal of spreading knowledge, the customers will also feel loyal to the IP company and will return to using the services in the future, if the company has not made such bad changes in the pricing, etc.

In the modern economy, the value of intangible intellectual property assets is increasing, and it is getting bigger and bigger when compared to the value of tangible assets. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to align and direct our focus on IP because that’s where the future value is.

Share the human side of the company

Law firms, like every other company, are a collection of people who work hard day and night to build society. Accordingly, an IP law firm is not a machine. Instead of behaving like a machine that accepts jobs – handles jobs, IP companies should research ways to share their human side, making clients feel that IP attorneys are human just like everyone else, a person or people that they can trust and put their money and hope in.

Thereby, they will not be pressured by knowledge class differences and can communicate more openly with the company.

A great place to do this is the ‘About us’ section of the website. By focusing on the simple aspects of attorneys, instead of just talking about products or outstanding achievements, they should have small stories, such as sharing why they know about IP or human rights from the beginning, perhaps as an IP customer like themselves. ‘The road from an IP client to an IP attorney’ is a good book title or a welcoming title for a website.

From there, the client will have a deep impression of the law firm and will consider to continue to cooperate in the future.

Absolutely confidential information for customers

Every business needs to put customer information security first. However, for IP attorneys and law firms, this is critically important. Currently, hackers appear everywhere on the network, making customers think about the loss and damage when cooperating with a law firm that is a bit weak in the field of network security.

They fear that their data may be compromised and that the company’s and their own confidential information will be exposed and taken advantage of. Accordingly, IP law firms need to put in place assurance measures to make clients feel secure that their information is safe when accompanying the law firm and IP attorney.

As customer trust is hard to build but extremely easy to lose, information security needs to be taken on top, whether through NDA contracts with employees or partners, etc.  

Advice for IP rights owners

IP rights owners should never be content with the present value that IP assets may have brought them. Instead, they should always research ways to maximize their profits from IP assets and at the same time, protect their IP assets from third parties – individuals, and organizations that have been, are, and will want to steal their effort.

Assessing and re-evaluating IP assets to understand their maximum financial value and provide the most appropriate protection methods is one of the goals that IP rights owners can achieve at any time, as long as they have a clear plan and the will to put such a plan into action.

IP rights owners can always explore and research some other areas where their trademarks, designs, inventions, etc. can become more useful and more profitable. Even after carefully considering an expansion plan, IP rights owners can always consider other methods of finding more profit and growth avenues, such as licensing intellectual property to create new and automated revenue streams.

It should be noted, though, that careful consideration of options is necessary because blindly expanding can lead to negative consequences. For example, in franchising, one of the biggest dilemmas that franchisors have to deal with is the lack of necessary oversight over the franchisee’s store, which leads to the brand’s total image going down.

On the whole, if one consumer has a bad experience in the system, that message will quickly spread to all consumers in the region, and then the whole world because current technology has evolved, allowing for quick expansion of information worldwide.

Other consumers who have not experienced the company’s products and services but have read bad reviews about the company’s products and services will certainly not choose that company. Accordingly, assessment and re-evaluation are necessary procedures when working with IP assets.

However, if IP rights owners don’t have knowledge about how to expand their business using their intellectual property, they should consider contacting a reputable law firm with expert IP attorneys for advice on this.

Currently, there are many cases where IP rights owners do not register to protect their IP assets. Among the various types of IP assets, copyright is the most commonly unregistered one because it can be automatically protected in many countries according to the effect of the Berne Convention.

However, even in those countries, it is best for IP rights owners to register their IP assets as soon as it is created as this will allow them to avoid many problems when conflicts suddenly arise. For trademarks, patents, industrial designs, etc., registration is mandatory as most countries now follow the first filing principle. Therefore, the owner needs to register the IP property to protect it when trading in the market.

In addition, early registration will bring IP rights owners a lot of benefits such as potential business transactions, saving legal costs if there is a dispute from a third party, etc. However, even if registration has been made, IP rights owners should not relax and automatically think they will be safe forever.

IPR rights can be challenged in a variety of ways, such as by revocation and cancellation. Therefore, owners should periodically review their IP assets and retain the proof of protection, proving their ownership so as not to be passive when certain incidents occur.

Careful preservation of evidence of the use of IP assets is also a welcome strategy.

AAA IPRIGHT – Global IP – Global Trademark Registration

Contact AAA IPRIGHT: Email: [email protected]

Or sending your inquiry by filling the form: