The Chief of the Ministry of Science and Technology’s Intellectual Property Department, Tran Viet Hung made the statement at the opening of the tenth National Conference on Intellectual Property (IP) in the south central province of Phu Yen on September 9.

The three-day conference brought together IP officials from all 63 cities and provinces to discuss the problems and challenges that still exist in IP management as the country has now been a member of the World Trade Organisation for more than two years.

The IP Department will continue to upgrade the national IP system as well as laws on IP rights in addition to other work in 2010, said Hung.

So far this year, more than 15,500 applications to register industrial ownership rights have been made, a drop of 6 percent when compared to the same period last year.

Of this figure, 387 applications have been granted protection on industrial inventions, 615 on industrial designs, 11,270 on national trademarks and 2,128 on international trademarks.

The authorities have also handled 2,800 infringements of IP rights, including 1,600 cases involving trademark violations, 153 cases of industrial designs being copied by nearly 2,000 products and 921 other breaches of copyrights.