VietNamNet Bridge – Travel firms complain that the current laws do not protect them from the rivals who illegally use their brands.

Counterfeit goods owner threatens to sue real owner

Nguyen Van My, Director of Lua Viet Tours, said startled in surprise when realizing that there is another Lua Viet company in Nam Dinh, which is also a travel firm. Meanwhile, My’s Lua Viet Tours does not have any branch in the province.

My has found out that the Nam Dinh-based Lua Viet company is a legal entity which has the investment license granted by the Nam Dinh provincial Planning and Investment Department. Especially, the Nam Dinh-based Lua Viet once intended to sue against Lua Viet Tours, a tourism brand which has been well known for the last many years.

Hoa Le, General Director of the Hoa Binh Tourism Company, also complained that the name of the company has been imitated illegally. A former employee of the company left Hoa Binh and set up a new tourism business, named the Hoa Binh HCM City Tourism Company. As a result, clients misunderstood that Hoa Binh HCM City Tourism Company is a subsidiary of Hoa Binh.

“Especially, the new company copies all the tourism products designed by Hoa Binh, offers the same sales promotion campaigns. Even its logo and website also have the same designs and use the same colors,” Le said.

She went on to say that with the current laws, it is so easy to imitate others’ names. “The same name can be the brand of up to 10 companies with rather similar websites. Meanwhile, this is not prohibited by the Enterprise Law. Businesses would still be accepted even though their names have just one word different from others’,” she said.

Since these companies all have operation licenses, the disputes relating to the brand usually do not have much significance. It’ll take someone many years to build brands, but he can lose the brands overnight.

Law loopholes lend a hand to counterfeit tourism products

My of Lua Viet Tours believes that the current laws on business registration are not strict enough to ensure a fair playing field for all.

The current laws only protect the full names of enterprises, including the names showing the types of businesses, while they don’t protect the proper names. The government’s decree No. 43 that guides the implementation of the Enterprise Law shows some cases which may lead to name mistaking. However, the decree cannot cover all the behaviors of infringement.

Under the current laws, the representatives of travel firms don’t need to prove their education levels and experiences to be able to provide travel services. As a result, a lot of small travel firms with weak financial capability and profession have also been established, thus causing chaos in the market.

Le from Hoa Binh travel firm has been insisting on the necessity of amending the Enterprise Law and the government decree on business registration, adding the provisions which allow to protect the proper names.

“At least the similar names of enterprises must not be existing in the same business fields,” Le said.

“Meanwhile, relevant ministries and branches need to cooperate to protect enterprises’ brands. For example, the local department of culture, sports and tourism has the right to refuse to grant licenses for international travel services to a company, if it discovers the infringement committed by the company. Even though the company gets the license from the local planning investment already.

To Quoc