Chinese Company Registers Vietnamese Coffee Brand

12 September 2012

Vietnamese law firm Bross & Partners has discovered that the Buon Ma Thuot coffee brand has been patented by a Chinese company for 10 years, say the law firm and local media reports.

Buon Ma Thuot is a coffee growing area located in the central Vietnamese highlands province of Dak Lak. The region produces 300,000 tons of coffee annually which is exported to 60 countries.

According to a document sent by Bross & Partners to the Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Association, the brand name “Buon Ma Thuot và chữ Hán” (Buon Ma Thuot in Han script) has been patented by Guangzhou Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Co in China’s Guangdong province. China granted the company sole rights within China for a 10-year period in November 2010. Vietnamese authorities are concerned that the company may register the Buon Ma Thuot trademark globally.

Le Quang Vinh, director of the intellectual property division of Bross & Partners, said in the Sai Gon Giai Phong newspaper that the move will lead to confusion about the geographic origin of Buon Ma Thuot coffee. Vinh also expressed concern that the Chinese company might use its exclusive trademark rights to prevent the export of Buon Ma Thuot coffee from Vietnam into China.

Le Dang Trinh, chief officer of the Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Association, told the newspaper that the registration will also affect export of Buon Ma Thuot coffee to other countries in the world, not just to China.

The newspaper reported that although the Buon Ma Thuot coffee brand has been granted a national protection certificate in Vietnam, it has not registered the brand in other countries. Vinh warned that if a foreign geographic name is widely known by the Chinese public, businesses are not permitted to register and use it as their own brand name.

Tran Viet Hung, former Director of the Office for Intellectual Property (NOIP), told Vietnam Business News that even though there has been no sign showing that the Chinese company has taken full advantage of its registered trademark ownership to ask for measures to prohibit Vietnamese Buon Ma Thuot brand coffee to enter the Chinese market, it is still necessary to take legal proceedings to ask for Buon Ma Thuot trademark back, as soon as possible.

Hung says this is not for the first time a Vietnamese geographical indication is stolen. The same thing occurred with Vietnamese Phu Quoc fish sauce.

In 2000, Vietnam Business News reported. The Phu Quoc Fish Sauce Association then had to immediately register its geographical indications in Europe. He has advised the provincial authorities to send a petition to Chinese authorities to ask for the removal of the trademark registration, and urged that enterprises need to register geographical indication for protection do so, not only in Vietnam, but in other markets as well.

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