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VietNamNet Bridge – Luong Van Tu, Chair of the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa
Association (Vicofa), on September 15 affirmed that the association will join
forces with the Dak Lak People’s Committee to take legal proceedings against the
Chinese company to reclaim the Buon Ma Thuot coffee brand.
Vietnam may lose Buon Ma Thuot coffee brand
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Tu said that the association will work with the Dak Lak People’s Committee on the documents and proofs relating to the issue, and will send the necessary records to the Vietnamese Embassy in China. The association will also contact the Chinese Coffee Association to settle the problem.
“We are determined to reclaim the Buon Ma Thuot coffee brand. However, we should thoroughly consider the international laws, and we need to conduct the case through various channels,” Tu said.
Van Thanh Huy, General Director of Inexim DakLak, said that the community of Vietnamese coffee exporters has got very furious when hearing that a famous coffee geographical indication has been appropriated by a Chinese company. Buon Ma Thuot coffee is a long standing Vietnamese coffee brand with clear geographical indication.
To date, the fact that a Chinese company registered “Buon Ma Thuot” as its exclusive trademark has not had serious impacts on Vietnam’s coffee exports. However, this will have long term influences, because Vietnamese coffee products are well known to foreign clients, but they may misunderstand that coffee is grown in…China.
“I strongly believe that the Dak Lak provincial authorities need to consider the issue immediately and demand the brand back,” he said.
In fact, some Dak Lak provincial officials have been informed about the problem for a long time, but the provincial authorities have not done anything to settle the problem.
Dinh Van Khiet, Deputy Chair of the Dak Lak People’s Committee, said that two years ago, in a meeting with the investors in Dak Lak province held in HCM City, he was so surprised when receiving a name card of a Chinese businessman. The name and the title of the businessman was written in both Chinese and English, and Khiet could read the words “BUON MA THUOT COFFEE”.
At that time, he was told that the Chinese company which bears the name “BUON MA THUOT COFFEE” had its headquarters in Guangzhou, China.
Khiet then narrated the story to the officers of the Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Association and told them to be vigilant about this. However, the story had fallen into oblivion until now.
Nguyen Van Lang, former Chair of the Dak Lak provincial people’s committee, now Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, one of the pioneers in the campaign for building a geographical indication for Buon Ma Thuot Coffee, has said that he knows a Vietnamese company headquartered in Buon Ma Thuot City, which once made trade with the Chinese company many years ago. He thinks that the relation with the Vietnamese company suggested the Chinese company to use “Buon Ma Thuot coffee” as its brand.
Vietnamese relevant agencies have been criticized for being too slow in taking actions, which may lead to immeasurable consequences. Some analysts have said that besides the Buon Ma Thuot coffee, other geographical indications such as Lam Dong and Gia Lai should also be registered.
Trinh Duc Minh, Deputy Director of the Dak Lak provincial Department for Science and Technology, said that Vietnam should have drawn a lesson from the cases of having its famous trademarks stolen. He said that the thing that needs to be done immediately is to register trademarks and geographical indications in big markets.
However, Minh admitted that many Vietnamese enterprises once met big challenges when registering trademarks in other countries, because they are weak at both financial capability and legal knowledge.
Source: SGTT
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