Introduction
Under the Vietnam State’s policy on science and technology, the technology transfer is considered a priority matter for accessing advanced and high technologies. The importation of advanced, clean and high technologies, and prevention of the inbound transfer of outdated and hazardous technologies is a crucial policy of the state for innovation and development of key and competitive industries. The first effort to build this process was in the 1998 Ordinance on Technology Transfer where tax incentives were provided to inbound investment projects for the purpose of encouraging the importation of new technologies.
The Law on Technology Transfer No. 80/2006/QH11 dated 29 November 2006, effective on 1 January 2007 (the “2006 Technology Transfer Law”), was the first law on technology transfer of Vietnam, which has been implemented for about ten years and had a significant contribution to encouraging technical and industrial innovation, and application of technical and industrial advances in manufacturing and society, thus helping promote enterprises’ production capacity and Vietnam’s economy in general.
However, after more than ten years of implementation of the 2006 Technology Transfer Law it has exposed certain shortcomings and inadequacies for governing new practices that arose from the development of overseas and domestic technology and industries, the global and national socio-economies, and industry 4.0. In addition, a number of related new or amended laws, such as the amended Law on Intellectual Property in 2009, 2019; the 2013 Law on Science and Technology; the 2014 Law on Investment; the 2014 Law on Enterprise Income Tax; the 2015 Law on Statistics were promulgated. All of this required the 2006 Technology Transfer Law be reviewed, amended and supplemented to catch up with the then-current practices, and ensure consistency amongst the several laws. On 19 June 2017, the Law on Technology Transfer No. 07/2017/QH14, effective from 1 July 2018 (the “Technology Transfer Law”), was promulgated and replaced the 2006 Technology Transfer Law.
Guiding regulations for the implementation of the Technology Transfer Law have also been promulgated, namely Decree No. 76/2018/ND-CP dated 15 May 2018, providing guidelines for implementation of certain articles of the Technology Transfer Law (“Decree 76”); and Circular No. 02/2018/TT-BKHCN dated 15 May 2018 providing reporting regime of the implementation of agreement on transfer of technology which is in the list of technologies restricted from transferring; document forms used in the grant of technology transfer license, registration, extension, amendment, supplementation of content of transferred technology (“Circular 02”). In addition, administrative violations in the sector of technology transfer are enumerated in Decree No. 51/2019/ND-CP dated 13 June 2019 providing administrative sanctions in the activities of science and technology, and technology transfer (“Decree 51”).
