Accelerate the Examination of Vietnamese Patent Applications by Using Search and Examination Results of Corresponding Foreign Patent Applications
The 2022 Law Amending and Supplementing a Number of Articles of the Law on Intellectual Property (the IP Law) introduced a provision allowing the Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam (IPVN) to use search results and substantive examination results of a patent application issued by a foreign patent office in the course of substantive examination of the corresponding patent application in Vietnam. Article 16.9 of Circular No. 23/2023/TT-BKHCN (Circular 23) guided the implementation of this provision of the IP Law as follows: substantive examination results of a foreign patent office used by IPVN in the course of substantive examination of a Vietnamese patent application (foreign results) must be issued by an authority included in a list approved by the Minister of Science and Technology (MOST) upon the proposal of IPVN. However, from the effective date of Circular 23 until now, MOST has not issued the list of foreign patent offices whose examination results IPVN may use. As a result, this provision has not been effectively applied in practice since it took effect. On 31 March 2026, MOST issued Circular No. 10/2026/TT-BKHCN, effective from 1 April 2026 (Circular 10), replacing Circular 23, which substantially amended the above provision, specifically providing that foreign results must be issued by a national or regional intellectual property authority recognized as an International Searching Authority or International Preliminary Examining Authority under the PCT. With this amendment, this provision can now be applied conveniently in practice.