Vietnam Industrial Design: Extending Protection to Partial Designs and Designs of Non-physical Products

Vietnam’s amendment of the Intellectual Property Law (IP Law) and its guiding regulations extended protection of industrial design to partial designs and designs of non-physical products, effective from 1 April 2026, by the amended definition of an industrial design, particularly “an industrial design refers to the external appearance of all or part of a product, in physical or non-physical form, expressed in shape, lines, colors, or a combination of these elements, and visible in the process of exploiting the product's use”. Below is a summary of the updated regulations regarding partial designs and designs of non-physical products.

1. Partial designs

Prosecution perspective

In the past, partial design – a design of a part of an integrated product that is inseparable from the integrated product or can be separated from the integrated product only by destroying the integrated product, is not patentable. With the amended definition of an industrial design as above and more clarification in its guiding regulations, “a part of a product is the part of the product for which the applicant seeks protection, including both separable and inseparable parts”, the partial design is patentable.

As for industrial applicability, one of the protection requirements of an industrial design, a partial design is considered to satisfy the industrial applicability requirement if it can be used as a model for the mass manufacture of products whose part of their external appearance, is the partial design, through the production of products by industrial or artisanal methods.

The part that claims protection (claimed part) and the part that does not claim protection (unclaimed part) of a partial design can be represented in drawings in one of the following ways:

·The claimed part is shown with solid lines, and the unclaimed part is shown with broken lines;

·The claimed part is shown in a color contrasting with the color of the unclaimed part.

Please note that due to the unity requirements, it is impossible to file a single application for a partial design of an integrated product and the design of that product. The partial design and the design of that product must be filed in different applications.

Enforcement perspective

Infringement elements of industrial design rights relating to partial designs is specified as follows: An inseparable part of a product whose external appearance is considered not significantly different from a protected industrial design if that part belongs to the product of the same type, has a similar position and proportion within the overall product and shares the same set of characteristic features as the protected partial design of another person.

The acts of using a partial design include manufacturing, circulating, advertising, offering for sale, storing for circulation, and importing the part of a product whose external appearance is the protected industrial design.

2. Designs of non-physical products

Prosecution perspective

Non-physical products are defined as objects that do not exist in a tangible form, are created through the projection or display of a design onto a surface or into the environment (including air), and have a practical function to operate, interact, or perform a specific task. With the definition, graphical user interfaces (GUI), icons, typefaces, etc. can be protected as industrial design.

Like industrial designs of physical products, one of the protection requirements for industrial designs of non-physicalproducts is industrial applicability. An industrial design of a non-physicalproduct is considered to satisfy the industrial applicability requirement if it can be used as a model to reproduce the non-physical product uniformly in cyberspace. Interfaces with randomly displayed images are considered not to meet the industrial applicability requirements.

The features of industrial designs of non-physical products include shapes, layout, relative proportions, display sequence, and visual effects of graphic elements on non-physical products.

Requirements on drawings: In cases where the industrial design of a non-physical product undergoes shape changes or displacements, this effect can be represented bya series of sequential images, each image in the series depicting a successive state of the transformation process.

Enforcement perspective

Use of designs of non-physical products involves performing the act of circulating digital copies of non-physical products whose appearance or part of their appearance is a protected industrial design.

Conclusion: From 1 April 2026, applicants can apply for protection of partial designs and designs of non-physical products in Vietnam either via direct national filing or through international filing under the Hague Agreement. However, it is important to note that not all designs of products under class 32 of the Locarno Classification System are patentable in Vietnam. Applicants should seek advice from local agents for specific designs of products under class 32 before proceeding with protection in Vietnam.

Should you need advice on any specific issue, please do not hesitate to contact us at hanoi@duongtran.vn.