Vietnam Further Relaxes Requirements on Foreign Filing Licenses for Patents under the 2025 Amendment to the Law on Intellectual Property
Following the relaxation of security control requirements for patents under the 2022 Law Amending and Supplementing a Number of Articles of the Law on Intellectual Property (the IP Law), the 2025 Law Amending and Supplementing a Number of Articles of the IP Law, effective from 1 April 2026, further relaxes the security control requirements for patents, specifically by no longer requiring an applicant to file the first domestic patent application before being permitted to file a corresponding patent application abroad. Instead of filing the first domestic patent application, where an invention/utility solution is subject to security control, the applicant now only needs to file a request for license to file a patent application abroad (foreign filing license) with the Ministry of National Defense or the Ministry of Public Security. In addition, the scope of inventions/utility solutions subject to foreign filing license has been narrowed, now applying only to inventions/utility solutions falling under the list of state secrets. These amendments, in particular the removal of the requirement to file the first domestic patent application before filing a patent application abroad, represent significant progress, reducing the time, effort and cost for rights holders whose inventions/utility solutions are subject to security control but who have no need to file a patent application in Vietnam. Set out below is a summary of certain amendments relating to this requirement.