After years of institutional reform and deeper international integration, Viet Nam faces a major challenge in the knowledge economy: how to turn inventions, technologies and research outcomes into genuine economic value.
A country’s position on the global intellectual property map is determined not by the number of protection certificates it holds, but by its ability to transform knowledge into products, businesses and competitive advantage.
A new position in the knowledge economy
After nearly two decades of deep integration into the international intellectual property system, many foreign experts believe that Viet Nam has moved beyond the foundation-building stage and is entering a new phase of development.
Whereas the primary focus in the past was on improving legislation, building enforcement institutions and strengthening the capacity to establish intellectual property rights, the challenge today is not only to provide better protection for intellectual assets but also to make more effective use of those that have already been created.
International experts regard this as an important transition for an economy seeking to base its growth increasingly on knowledge, technology and innovation.
Lim Hyunggun, a Korean patent examiner specialising in machinery technologies, believes that Viet Nam has moved beyond the basic stage of legal development and is gradually modernising its intellectual property system.
According to him, the priority at this stage is not merely to continue refining legislation but also to improve enforcement and build market confidence in the intellectual property system. Investors and innovators need to feel that intellectual property rights are not only registered but are also protected and enforced in practice.
Recent changes in Viet Nam’s intellectual property system are significant not only from a legal perspective but also because they reflect a shift in development thinking. Intellectual property is increasingly viewed as a component of the country’s knowledge-economy strategy rather than simply a mechanism for protecting rights.
Many international experts share this assessment when considering Viet Nam’s prospects in the years ahead.
According to Associate Professor Dinh Thai Hoang of the University of Technology Sydney, Viet Nam is currently undergoing a highly important transition: from a country that primarily receives and applies technology to one that participates more deeply in the creation of knowledge, technology and intellectual property assets.
He stated that Viet Nam’s greatest strengths lie in its young workforce, its ability to adopt new technologies quickly, and its solid foundations in mathematics, engineering and information technology. These are key conditions for developing future generations of researchers, engineers and technology enterprises.
Speaking with Nhan Dan Newspaper, Israeli Ambassador to Viet Nam Yaron Mayer also praised these advantages. In his view, a large and youthful workforce is one of the key foundations for innovation-driven industries and for the development of products with high intellectual content.
He also acknowledged Viet Nam’s efforts in promoting science, technology and innovation in recent years. According to Ambassador Yaron Mayer, these are essential factors for enhancing the economy’s long-term competitiveness.
From the perspective of many international partners, Viet Nam’s advantages lie not only in its market size or its ability to attract investment, but also in its potential to develop a community of researchers, engineers and technology enterprises capable of playing an increasingly important role in global value chains.
These assessments suggest that the international community now views Viet Nam differently from the past. While the country was once known primarily as a manufacturing hub or a link in global supply chains, expectations are rising regarding its capacity to contribute more significantly to the creation of knowledge, technology and valuable intellectual property assets.
However, according to many experts, these are merely necessary conditions.
A young workforce, an increasingly well-developed institutional framework and strong international interest do not automatically enable a country to elevate its position on the global intellectual property map. More important is the ability to convert these advantages into real economic value. This remains the gap that Viet Nam must continue to narrow in the next stage of its development.
The remaining gap
While international assessments indicate that Viet Nam possesses many favourable conditions for participating more deeply in the knowledge economy, experts also point to a challenge commonly faced by many developing countries.
That challenge is the gap between research and commercialisation.
Over the years, Viet Nam has made significant progress in scientific research, international publications, engineering education and the development of technology-related human resources. However, turning those research outcomes into patents, commercial products, technological standards or spin-off enterprises remains far from straightforward.
According to Associate Professor Dinh Thai Hoang, this is one of the greatest challenges currently facing the development of Viet Nam’s innovation ecosystem.
He said that Viet Nam has many promising ideas and high-quality research outcomes, but not all of them are designed from the outset to become patents, products, technological standards or spin-off companies.
According to the expert, one of the decisive factors in enabling Viet Nam to participate more deeply in the global intellectual property landscape is the establishment of effective mechanisms linking universities, research institutes, businesses and investors.
The experience of many countries demonstrates that the value of intellectual property lies not in the number of patents granted but in the ability to bring research outcomes to market.
This is also a point strongly emphasised by Korean expert Lim Hyunggun. He argues that Viet Nam should not attempt to commercialise intellectual property assets across every sector simultaneously. Instead, it should focus on industries capable of building domestic capabilities while generating international competitive advantages.
These include semiconductors, high technology, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and the creative industries.
Experience from many Asian countries shows that these sectors are often able to generate high added value while maintaining close links with research, innovation and intellectual property activities.
Notably, most of these sectors are already receiving significant attention in Viet Nam’s strategies for science, technology and high-tech industrial development. They are also attracting increasing participation from international partners through research collaborations, technology transfer programmes and human-resource training initiatives.
According to Lim Hyunggun, concentrating resources on a limited number of breakthrough sectors, rather than dispersing them too widely, would help create technology clusters and innovation ecosystems capable of competing regionally and globally.
From this perspective, Viet Nam’s challenge is not simply to generate more intellectual property assets but to identify the sectors in which those assets can create the greatest economic impact.
This is also where many international experts converge in their assessments. They believe that the development of a knowledge economy cannot rely solely on increasing the number of patents or scientific publications; it must focus on creating technologies, products and businesses capable of succeeding in the marketplace.
However, even after identifying priority sectors and establishing the necessary linkages, a larger question remains.
How can research outcomes truly become successful businesses, competitive products and intellectual property assets that generate lasting economic value?
This is a question that many countries have sought to answer over decades. Israel stands out as one of the most notable examples.
The ultimate measure of intellectual property
While international experts identify the greatest gap as the process of transforming research into products and businesses, Israel’s experience offers a more concrete perspective on how to narrow the gap in practice.
For many years, Israel has stood as one of the world’s most dynamic innovation ecosystems. Despite its relatively small population, the country has one of the highest concentrations of start-ups and technology companies globally.
Speaking with Nhan Dan Newspaper, Israeli Ambassador to Viet Nam Yaron Mayer explained that one of the key factors behind this success is the effective linkage among three groups: researchers (universities and research institutes), businesses and investors, forming what he described as a development triangle.
Businesses support researchers in developing innovative solutions and subsequently benefit from commercial outcomes. Investors gain confidence through technology-transfer organisations such as those associated with universities, including the Technion, which the government encourages and supports.
This model has considerable potential for wider application, though it requires coordination and commitment from authorities at all levels.
According to the Israeli diplomat, innovation is not the result of a single actor but the product of an entire ecosystem. Within that ecosystem, universities and research institutes generate new knowledge; businesses help develop and commercialise technologies; and investors provide the resources needed for ideas to continue growing.
Ambassador Yaron Mayer stressed that the key is not merely producing valuable research outcomes but creating mechanisms that allow those outcomes to reach the market.
He cited T3 (Technion Technology Transfer), the technology-transfer arm of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, as one of Israel’s most prominent examples of connecting research with the marketplace.
According to him, T3 serves as a bridge between academic research and industry, helping researchers patent new inventions, license intellectual property and establish start-up companies based on laboratory breakthroughs.
Ambassador Yaron Mayer explained that T3 focuses on three principal objectives. First, it manages and protects intellectual property by evaluating inventions, filing patent applications and safeguarding intellectual property rights. Second, it commercialises research outcomes by licensing protected technologies to businesses or supporting the creation of new spin-off companies. Third, it promotes industrial collaboration by increasing sponsored research and building long-term partnerships between Technion scientists and business partners.
According to the Ambassador, intermediary mechanisms such as these help reduce the gap that commonly exists between scientific research and the marketplace. He noted that since its establishment, Technion and T3 have helped launch more than 100 technology companies.
Many of these companies have become internationally influential brands, including Mazor Robotics in surgical robotics, Corindus Vascular Robotics in cardiovascular interventions, and Novocure in cancer-treatment technologies.
What these companies share is that they all originated from scientific research.
These examples demonstrate the importance of technology-transfer mechanisms in bringing university research to market and creating links between research activities, intellectual property and business development.
However, Ambassador Yaron Mayer emphasised that creating companies and bringing technologies to market are not the final destination.
According to him, the true measure of intellectual property success is its ability to generate economic value.
An idea may reach commercialisation, he noted, but if the resulting product or service fails to gain market adoption, it cannot succeed.
When products with high intellectual content reach a broader customer base, businesses gain opportunities to expand into larger markets and even enter export markets and the global marketplace.
According to Ambassador Yaron Mayer, this requires a business-oriented mindset from the very beginning of the research and development process in order to maximise innovation efforts.
A net house using Israeli technology in Thai Nguyen Province. (Photo: Israeli Embassy in Viet Nam)
Looking back at the development of Viet Nam’s intellectual property system in recent years, it is clear that important foundations for a knowledge economy are gradually taking shape, from institutional reform and deeper international integration to the attraction of research, innovation and technology-transfer activities.
However, as many international experts have pointed out, these are only necessary conditions.
Perhaps the clearest measure of a country’s standing on the global intellectual property map lies not in the number of patents filed or protection certificates granted, but in its ability to transform knowledge into products, businesses and economic value.
Viet Nam’s journey ahead is therefore not only about providing better protection for intellectual property assets that have already been created, but also about generating more intellectual property that bears a distinctly Vietnamese imprint, bringing those assets to market and participating more deeply in high-value technology sectors.
Only then will intellectual property cease to be merely a tool for protecting rights and truly become a driver of growth, innovation and national competitiveness in the knowledge economy.
Published: June 2026
Production manager: Thach Vu
Content: Quynh Lan, Minh Phuong, Van Toan, Trung Hieu, Thanh Mai, Hoa Bui