Duong & Tran Intellectual Property

Vietnam: Add a New Ground for Invalidation of Patent

9/22/2026

A new ground for invalidation of patent relating to inventors has been added to the 2025 Vietnam’s Law Amending the Intellectual Property Law (the “Amending IP Law”) which came into effect from 1 April 2026. Particularly, a patent can be invalidated if the inventor(s) do/does not meet the requirements set forth in Article 122(1) of the IP Law. Article 122(1) of the IP Law specifies that an inventor of an invention is the natural person who directly created the invention; where two or more persons have jointly and directly created the invention, they are co-inventors. Accordingly, in case the inventor(s) is/are not natural person(s), a patent can be invalidated.

This added ground aims to provide legal basis for invalidation of patent in case the invention is created by artificial intelligence (AI). Below is a summary of grounds and competent authorities who handle invalidation of patent under the current IP Law and other laws.

1. Grounds for invalidation of a patent

A patent can be invalidated entirely on the following grounds:

  • The patent application was filed contrary to the regulations on security control of an invention/utility solution;
  • The patent application that was directly created based on genetic resource(s) or traditional knowledge of genetic resources did not disclose or inaccurately disclosed them in the application;
  • The inventor(s) is/are not natural person(s).

A patent can be invalidated entirely or invalidated partially if the entire patent or certain parts of the patent do not meet the requirements, on the following grounds:

  • The applicant was neither entitled to file the application nor assigned such right;
  • The invention in the patent did not meet the patentability requirements or is contrary to the social ethics and public order and prejudicial to defence and security at the time of grant;
  • Amendment, addition of application containing the subject-matter extends beyond the scope of the subject-matter disclosed in the original application, or changes the nature of the subject-matter disclosed in the original application;
  • Insufficient disclosure to enable a person having ordinary skill in the art to implement the invention;
  • Granted invention extends beyond the scope disclosed in the original specification;
  • The invention/utility solution did not meet the first-to-file principle.

The guiding regulations (Circular 10/2026/ TT-BKHCN amended and supplemented by Circular 20/2026/TT-BKHCN) provide guidance on the specific cases where specification contains the changes introducing information that is not directly and unambiguously derived from the original specification that can result in invalidation of patent:

  • During amendment or supplementation of the application, the applicant introduces technical feature(s) that cannot be directly and unambiguously derived from the original specification;
  • Additional information (including information on purpose, effects, etc.) is introduced that cannot be directly and unambiguously derived from the original description (including drawings) and/or the original claims for the purpose of clearly disclosing the invention or sufficiently disclosing the claims;
  • The added content consists of technical features relating to dimensional parameters obtained by measuring dimensions shown in the drawings;
  • Details or additional components not mentioned in the original specification are introduced, resulting in special effects and/or advantages not disclosed in the original specification;
  • Effects and/or advantages are added that a person having ordinary knowledge in the relevant technical field cannot derive them from the original specification;
  • A technical feature in the claims is changed, and the changed feature has not been disclosed or cannot be directly and unambiguously derived from the original specification;
  • New contents are introduced by converting undefined contents into defined and specific contents;
  • Separate technical features disclosed in the original specification are combined into a new technical feature where the relationship among those features has not been disclosed in the original specification;
  • One or more technical features in the description are altered such that the altered features differ from those disclosed in the original specification;
  • A technical feature is removed from a claim where that feature is necessary for the claimed subject matter to achieve its intended purpose and/or the removal changes that feature or other technical features.

Amendment during invalidation: there are no specific regulations and there is no prohibition of amendment during nullity procedure.

2. Competent authorities who handle invalidation of patent

Invalidation action can be initiated at the Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam (IPVN) or an IP specialized court by way of a judicial review of an administrative case.

Invalidation before IPVN:

This route is often used in practice.

  • Statute of limitation: During the whole protection term of the patent
  • Timeline: 18-25 months under the regulations, however, there may be delay in practice.

Invalidation before the IP court under administrative case:

  • Statute of limitation: 1 year from the date of receipt of or knowledge about an administrative decision (decision on grant of patent).
  • Timeline: It takes around 10-14 months for the first trial and 7 to 10 months for the appellate trial. However, in complicated cases, the periods may be longer.

3. Invalidation during patent infringement under civil actions

In addition to the above competent authorities, invalidation of patents during patent infringement under civil actions can be initiated before the IP court under the same civil action that is being handled by the court. The IP court who is handling the litigation case can also handle the invalidation of the patent based on one of the following grounds:

  • (i) the defendant’s counter-claims by requesting the IP court to invalidate the specific decision (decision on grant of patent); or
  • (ii) proactively reviewing a specific decision (decision on grant of patent) by the IP court. The IP court who is handling the patent litigation case is capable of proactively reviewing the decision on grant of patent that is the subject of the patent litigation case, without request from one of the parties. The IP court can invalidate the decision on grant of patent if there is ground for the invalidation.
  • Statute of limitation:
    • As for the defendant’s counter-claims (i), the defendant must submit its counter-claim for invalidation of patent before the meeting for checking the handover of, access to and disclosure of evidences and mediating.
    • As for the regulation on reviewing specific decision (ii), there are currently no detailed regulations on the limitation period. Under the old regulations, there is no statute limitation for reviewing specific decision. In practice, it is any time during the patent’s validity term.
  • Timeline: under the regulations, timeline is 10-14 months for the first trial. However, in practice, it can take 15-24 months or more for complicated cases. For the appellate trial, it may take 6-12 months or more for complicated cases.

The introduction of the new IP court with its competence covers patent invalidation under an administrative case and patent invalidation during the same patent litigation case, it is hoped that patent litigation cases will not be stayed awaiting invalidation actions before IPVN like in the past.

Should you require further assistance regarding the above matters, please feel free to contact us at the following e-mail address: hanoi@duongtran.vn.