The difference in the copyrights of seed, product trademark, and brand

Mr. Tran Le Hong - Deputy Director-General of Department of National Office of Intellectual Property of Vietnam (under the Ministry of Science and Technology), says it is very useful when the people working in the agriculture sector have the expertise in copyrights.

It may support the business of rice variety and rice products in the market. In the case of ST25, it is clearly that there are two different brands, one attaching to the name of the protected new variety, and that is ST25, and we use the name to distinguish the product from other rice variety and on the basis, we protect the rice according to the ownership of the variety. If another entity trades the variety or bears the name of the variety for others, it is considered illegal and must be handle.

Mr. Hong details his analysis as below:

“We normally say that rice is a consumer product created from rice variety, so we need another name for rice brand as rice product traders maybe or maybe not the rice variety traders joining in agricultural production activities. Even people who are not agricultural producers can trade rice products and they must have their brands and trademarks are a must when it comes to the expansion of their rice brand.

We can see that these are two different subjects with two different regulations in intellectual property law. If we refer to the registration of new protected plant variety, the name of plant variety should be mentioned, ST25 as an example, but when we refer to the trademark registration of rice product traders, they must have their brand, for example, we have the rice brands of Bao Minh, Hat Ngoc Troi among others.

And due to the relation of the production process from rice variety to rice products, we usually say it, in short, the rice that we like including ST25 rice. But actually, as we said they are two different subjects including rice and variety. And to avoid this misunderstanding, we need to acknowledge to put information on the rice products sold on the market clearly including the brand of the products and from which variety the rice is created.

And right in Vietnam’s regulation in the coming time, we also expect to make it clearer by adding a new ordinance to Article 74.2 of Intellectual Property law on trademark registration without permission including if the trademark is duplicated or similar to the name of the variety, the trademark registration for that variety or variety of the same species is ineligible. So we will have a clearer legal basis for trademark registration.”

Annually, Vietnam exports around 6 million tons of rice but most of them are contained in white sacks without name and brand. Although being one of the largest rice exporters in the world, when it comes to Vietnamese rice brands, there are many limitations can be seen.

Regarding Vietnamese rice, enterprises believe that national brand must start from the product’s brand, which roots from enterprise’ brand. If all enterprises produce good quality products, the brand and the image of the country would be promoted.

There is a lesson about Jasmine rice of Thailand in Japan, Taiwan, and Europe. Taking account of 10 rice brands over the period of 10 years from 2009 to 2019, the Jasmine brand always took the lead. In that case, the Jasmine rice variety is an international brand. The problem is how enterprises can develop the rice branding?

“It is not that we do not own a good variety, it is not that we do not own a high-quality variety, but we have not yet linked the development from the variety to the rice. A general rice brand would not bring success. For example, the ST25 rice, I did say that we just focus on developing the ST25 widely, despite the counterfeiting rice brand, I firmly believe that it will strive, not to mention the ST24, when I traveled overseas, people also asked me about the ST24 rice. And why not develop the branding together instead of a small enterprise shouldering it,” said Mr. Tran Manh Bao, CEO of Thai Binh Seed Joint Stock Company and President of the Vietnam Seed Trade Association.

It is time to take into account the factor of developing the Vietnamese rice brand associated with different lines of brand and corresponding varieties of different rice species to have a suitable development direction.

“If we just build up a general rice brand, it won’t draw the interest of businesses and the practices in using common trademarks in Vietnam have also shown that, for example, in the past, when we had Binh Thuan dragon fruit, many businesses did not use the common brand bearing that geographical indication because they thought it does not economically viable to their exports. Instead, they use their brand that has been invested, known in foreign markets”, said Mr. Tran Le Hong - Deputy Director-General of Department of National Office of Intellectual Property of Vietnam of Ministry of Science and Technology.