VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Science and Technology’s legal documents on the value of scientists’ inventions are insufficiently clear.

Dr. Vo Thi Hanh, director of Phuong Nam Biology Company, the producer of biological produce used in animal husbandry and cultivation, said the company’s selling prices are five to 10 times higher than imports of the same kind.

Hanh said foreign-made products are more expensive because foreign intellectual property (IP) has high value.

In the past, when a production workshop was located in the Institute of Tropical Biology (ITB) campus, Hanh said she paid royalties to ITB based on monthly sales.

However, when Hanh and her associates established a company of their own, she stopped paying the royalties because “ITB and the city’s Science and Technology Department did not request us to pay”.

In May 2014, the HCM City Science and Technology Department transferred the technology on using waste from alcohol distillation to make biological produce for agriculture production. There was no request for royalties.

Meanwhile, Dr. Tran Van Sung, director of Heantos, the company that makes Heantos 4, a medicine for drug detoxification, said the company and the drug inventor agreed that the latter would receive royalties based on sales for five years, and then the agreement would be reconsidered.

According to Fucoidan Vietnam, the company which makes fucoidan, an active biological element used in some kinds of medicine, the technology royalty is valued at 5 percent of Fucoidan Vietnam’s stake, and equal to the sum of money the State paid to fund the research work.

The author of the research work was Nitra, the Nha Trang science and technology institute.

Tran Xuan Dich, deputy director of Ministry of Science and Technology’s (MST) market and business development department, said that it is reasonable to set the value of technology royalties equal to state funds for each scientific research work.

Dich admitted that existing legal documents showing how to determine the worth of technology royalties remain unclear, and that MST is compiling a circular on the issue, which is expected to be issued soon.

Dao Minh Duc, head of the intellectual property (IP) division of the HCM City Science and Technology Department, said in principle the financial investors are the owners of the inventions.

However, researchers and financial investors still can negotiate other agreements. Those who use inventions for commercial purposes, or any other purposes, must ask for permission from the owners.

Thanh Lich