The NA Standing Committee yesterday also debated the revised draft Law on Intellectual Property.
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh told lawmakers that the revised law focused on copyright, rights related to crop varieties, procedures to define intellectual property rights, and protection of intellectual property.

Minister Anh said some of the articles needed to be revised to comply with international law, including the Berne Convention (1886), Paris Convention (1967) and Viet Nam-US Bilateral Trade Agreement.

In discussion of the draft law, NA Standing Committee members agreed the draft law was complex and difficult.

Deputies Nguyen Van Thuan, Le Quang Binh and Truong Thi Mai said the draft law's compiling board should not extend the aspects to be revised but should try to limit them to how to comply with international commitments and overcome shortcomings and problems.

Participants proposed copyright be protected for 75 years instead of 50 years, as under the current Law on Intellectual Property.

Dao Trong Thi said the extension of copyright terms was necessary to bring it in line with international practice.

But the director of the Committee on Social Affairs, Truong Thi Mai, asked for prudence in considering an extension that might have a negative impact on the public interest white protecting the rights of individual authors.

The intellectual property law was originally promulgated in 2005, laying a solid basis for protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the State, intellectual property owners, consumers and the public, said lawmakers.

by VietNamNet/Viet Nam News