VinFast Manufacturing and Trading Company Limited, a subsidiary of Vingroup, has announced that the European Union Intellectual Property Organisation recently granted intellectual property (IP) protection licences for designs of its sedan and SUV models. 

 

The first IP protection will be valid for five years which will be extended four times. 

 

Accordingly, other automakers will not be allowed to manufacture and sell cars with design identical or similar to Vinfast’s in the EU in the next 25 years. 

 

Apart from the EU, Vinfast has applied for industrial design protection for sedan and SUV in the US, Russia, Ukraine, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia. 

 

The two models were designed by Italy’s Pininfarina and selected by Vietnamese consumers in the contest “Choose the car also, VinFast” in October 2017.

 

In January 2018, Vinfast completed a 5 million USD contract with Pininfarina and partnered with the world’s leading automobile technology and manufacturing consulting firms such as BMW, Magna Steyer, AVL, Durr AG, Schuler AG and Eisenmann in order to churn out the first model by late 2019. 

 

The model cars will be showcased at the Paris Motor Show 2018 and then available on the domestic market. 

 

Vingroup Vice Chairman Nguyen Viet Quang said Vinfast’s application for design protection abroad is an important step to join the global market and affirm its trademark strategy. 

 

Standing for “Vietnam – Style – Safety – Innovation - Pioneer”, VinFast aims to manufacture cars that are a mix of modern style, comfortable quality, safety and international-class design, and are suitable to Vietnamese taste.-VNA