INNOVATION AND INVENTIONCOMMERCIALIZATION
IN VIETNAM

Dr. Phan Quoc Nguyen
Vietnam National University, Hanoi

Email: pqnguyen77@yahoo.com

Tokyo, February 09, 2017
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PROFILE OF PRESENTER
1. IP Attorney and Senior consultant. Has strong expertise inintellectual property (IP), technology transfer (TT) andinnovation management.
2. Founder of TLO of some leading technical universities.
3. Director of Public Relations of World Invention andIntellectual Property Associations (WIIPA).
4. Vietnamese representative (3 times) presenting the Country
Report at the University-Industry Technology Transfer Forum
held by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
5. The only Vietnamese scholar whose papers are accepted
continuously for oral presentation at the Asia-Pacific Innovation
Conference (APIC): National University of Singapore (2011),Seoul National University (2012), Taiwan National University(2013), University of Technology, Sydney (2014), and Kyushu
University (2016).
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PROFILE OF PRESENTER
6. Judge and Award Winner for invention contests: Kaohsiung International Invention
and Design Exhibition (KIDE) by WIIPA in Taiwan; Envex Young Researcher Club (iENVEX) by University Malaysia of Perlis in Malaysia; EUROINVENT by Gheorghe
Asachi Technical University of Iasi in Romania; World Invention and Creativity Contest(WICC) by Korea University Invention Association in South Korea; and Vietnam
Innovation (Vietnam Television Channel No.3), Inventions-Solutions and Inventors(Vietnam Television Channel No. 2), IP and the Life (Vietnam and Province
Televisions), Woman with Scientific Research and IP (Vietnam Television ChannelNo.2), Vietnam and the World (Vietnam Television Channel No.4), etc.
7. Member of Draft and Revision Group: Decision No. 78/2008/QD-BGDDT ofVietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training on IP activities at university and training
institutions; IP Policy of Hanoi University of Technology; IP Policy of Vietnam
National University, Hanoi.
8. Chief author of textbook and book: Intellectual Property, Technology Transfer andPatent Information Exploitation (Bach Khoa Publishing House, 2008, 2010, 2016);
Technology and Innovation Management (TOPICA, 2012) and co-author of books:
Innovation Essentials, (Science and Technology Publishing House, 2012); Technology
Transfer (Science and Technology Management Institution, 2010), Intellectual Property
Exploitation for Green Economy Growth in Vietnam (National Economics University,32016), etc.

CONTENTS

I. Introduction
II.Current status of Innovation andInvention Commercialization inVietnam
III. Recommendations

4INTRODUCTION- Vietnam has had an underdevelopedeconomy.
- Since its renovation and shift to an open
economy, it has seen more progress.
- The actual economy is in doubletransition:+ moving from centrally planned state
economy to market economy+ moving from agricultural economy toindustrial economy
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INTRODUCTION- Multiple challenges of globalization.
- Need for shortcut industrialization andmodernization.
- New technologies are necessary fornational development, in particular after
Vietnam’s accession to WTO in 2007,
joining in the AEC in 12/2015 andparticipation in the TPP Negotiation in2016.
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INTRODUCTION- However, Vietnam lacks technology.

- IPRs Commercialization & Innovation:+ promote and encourage the creation of newtechnologies,+ important step for the set-up of technology market,+ important role in socio-economic development.
- Research at universities/research institutes is themain source of new inventions to be patented andcommercialized, and applied into production.
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CURRENT STATUS- The National Party Congress: "strengthening
research and application of scientific andtechnological achievements to create abreakthrough in productivity, quality and efficiency
in each sector of the economy, improving thequality and commerciality of the S&T products”.
- The Government: policy, mechanisms+ to use and reward S&T staff and+ to implement the “rapid development of S&T
market; encourage and support S&T activities forthe development and exploitation of intellectual8property”.

POLICY AND LAWS
- The legal system of S&T: basically completed in accordancewith a modern management model successful in many
developed countries (Sources: MOST)→ Policy, specialized law and supporting legal documents:+ S&T Strategy to 2020;+ Reforms of S&T Management mechanisms;+ Development of technology market;+ International integration in S&T;
+ Law on Science and Technology (2000, amended in 2013);+ Law on Intellectual Property (2005, amended in 2009);+ Law on Standards and Technical Regulations (2006);+ Law on Technology Transfer (2006);+ Law on High Technology (2008) andand 52 decisions, decrees to guide law implementation. 9

DEVELOPMENT CONDITION- Science based development.
- Favorable development conditions:stable growth (6-7% GDP growth onaverage from 2000-2007).
- 3 year average from 2011 to 2013 has
increased by 5.6%/year, but still lower
than the 7.2% in the 2006-2010 period.
- 2015, GDP growth is 6.68% andexpectedly increases by 6.7% in 2016.
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PROGRAM AND PROJECT-14 programs in State-level (10 in S&T and 4 insocial sciences and humanities).
- Cooperate with 70 countries, signed andimplemented more than 80 Agreements, memberof more than 100 organizations in S&T.
- Projects:+ IPP (Innovation Partnership Programme, 2nd term);+ FIRST (Fostering Innovation through Research,Science and Technology);+ V-KIST;+ BIPP (Support to the Innovation and Developmentof business incubators policy project)
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INSTITUTION- 505 R&D organizations (Source:MOST).
- 400,000 enterprises, 2,800 S&T
enterprises, but only 204 enterprises
have been granted S&T enterprisecertificate (Source: MOST, in 11/2015).
- 75% of SMEs are using outdated
equipment (1960-1970), used 15%
normal equipment and 10% “modern”
equipment (Source: MOIC)
12HUMAN RESOURCE- R&D manpower: 164,744 people in 2013,- 2011-2012:+ 134,780 people, accounting for 0.15% of thepopulation (87.84 million),+ number of researchers is 105,230 people,
the rest are technicians, supporting staff,+ Universities: 52,997 – 62,095 people,
accounting for more than 50%,
+ 111 researchers in R&D/million people(Korea: 981 in 2010, Malaysia: 158 in 2011)13

-INFORMATION SOURCE
5 million S&T books.
20,000 S&T magazines.
Database: Science direct, Proquest Central,
Web of Science, IEEE, APS, Primo Central
Index, IOP Science, Springer eJournals.

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INFORMATION SOURCE- By the end of 2011, the NOIP has kept 29,090,778
descriptions of inventions and utility solutions.
→ an extremely rich source of information and apotential if exploited for commercialization.
≠ However, average of only 150 requests/year, thisnumber is too low.
Source: NOIP

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EXPENDITURE FOR S&T- The annual investment for S&T activities
was at 2% of the total State budget
expenditures (equivalent to 0.5 to 0.6% GDPwith the average growth rate of about 16%
per year,+ the state budget is still the main source ofinvestment: 70%,
+ from the non-state-budget sources: 30%of the total investment of the whole society toS&T activities).
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EXPENDITURE FOR R&D--Expenditure for R&D from State budget (Source: MOST):
Year

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2015

Billion
VND

6,310

6,585

7,867

9,178

11,49913,16814,144

Expenditure of enterprises for S&T in 2011 (Source: NASATI):Total
Billion
VND

Total

R&D

Technology Innovation

5,349.54

1,503.70

3,935.84

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VIETNAMESE PATENT APPLICATION NUMBER
Year

Patent number

Utility solution number

2010

306

215

2011

301

193

2012

382

198

2013

443

225

2014

583

310
Source: Annual report of NOIP 201518

RANK OF GLOBAL INNOVATION INDEX OF
VIETNAM AND SOME COUNTRIES (Source: The GII)Year

No of Highest
countscoreryVietnam

Malaysia

Singapore

Thailand

Score

Rank

Score

Rank

Score

Rank

Score

Rank

2011

125

74.1

36.71

51

44.05

3174.11143.33

48

2012

141

68.2

33.9

76

45.9

32

64.80

336.90

57

2013

142

66.59

34.82

76

46.92

32

59.41

8

37.63

57

2014

143

64.78

34.89

71

45.60

33

59.24

739.28

48

2015

141

68.3

38.35

52

45.98

32

59.36

738.1055
19-

GERD/GDP
GERD/GDP: 0.37% (2014).
2011:
Country Vietnam

USA

China

Malaysia

Korea

GERD
Billion
USD

450

250

2.65

33.7

0.25

(Source: MOST)

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--

PATENT NUMBER GAPAccording to NOIP, till end of 2010, thepatent number granted by the Vietnamese is371 while of utility solution number is 263.

In comparison with the patent numbers
granted by the foreigners in Vietnam, there
are the big gap: 371/5383 = 0,06.

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PATENT COMMERCIALIZATION
Year

Registered Patent licensing
contracts number

Registered Patent assigned
contracts number

2004

125

2005

123

2006

017

2007

022

2008

328

2009

220

2010

2425

2011

18
Source: NOIP22

RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Support the establishment of intermediaryorganizations for TT service.
2. Organize techmarts and promote the marketing oftechnologies.
3. Raise funds to support innovation.

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RECOMMENDATIONS
4. Re-create the relationship between GovernmentUniversity-Enterprise.
5. Promote the establishment of science-technology
enterprises and incubators.
6. Have new programs to support the application andcommercialization of new technologies.

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THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION

Dr. PHAN QUOC NGUYEN

Mobile phone: +84-913078792
Email: pqnguyen77@yahoo.com
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