Answer first: Vietnam’s draft Law on the Development of Cultural Industries seeks to establish an integrated framework that bridges creators, intellectual property, finance, and markets. Emphasizing a value-chain approach, the law prioritizes creative talent and intellectual property as key assets, aiming to overcome current regula…
Trademarks context for IP teams
Vietnam is advancing its cultural sector with the draft Law on the Development of Cultural Industries, currently open for public consultation. This legislative initiative reflects a growing recognition of culture not only as the spiritual foundation of society but also as a vital endogenous resource, a driver of economic growth, and a form of national soft power.
The draft law aims to fill a critical institutional gap in Vietnam’s cultural development framework. While existing laws regulate specific areas such as film, publishing, advertising, cultural heritage, intellectual property, business, investment, land, taxation, science, and technology, these statutes tend to operate in silos. The cultural industry, however, functions through interconnected value chains and interdisciplinary linkages. For example, a contemporary film involves music, copyright, technology, advertising, tourism, fashion, digital platforms, and international distribution. Similarly, video games integrate history, traditional art, design, software, music, and e-commerce to reach global audiences.
Key takeaways for Vietnam cultural industry development law
- Confirm how the development affects trademarks ownership, enforcement, licensing, or portfolio records.
- Separate confirmed facts from legal interpretation before advising business teams.
- Map deadlines, affected assets, contracts, and evidence files to the responsible internal owner.
- Use the issue as a prompt for monitoring, filing strategy, dispute preparation, or member education.
Practical analysis
Consequently, the draft law emphasizes the need for connecting mechanisms rather than additional licenses or regulatory bodies. It seeks to link culture with markets, creators with businesses, intellectual property with finance, training institutions with creative economy demands, Vietnamese enterprises with global distribution networks, and state resources with society’s creative potential.
The draft’s conceptual framework treats the cultural industry as an ecosystem and value chain, placing people, creative entities, businesses, and intellectual property at its core. This marks a significant shift from traditional management approaches focused on structures or zones. Instead, the law prioritizes fostering creativity, transforming ideas into artistic works, converting those works into intellectual property, and leveraging intellectual property to generate new products, businesses, markets, and value.
This approach aligns with recent national policy directions. Resolution 80-NQ/TW underscores culture’s central role in national development, linking it with people, endogenous resources, innovation, and soft power. Resolution 28/2026/QH16 introduces new mechanisms for resource mobilization, investment, creative commissioning, digital transformation, infrastructure, and the Cultural and Arts Fund.
General Secretary and President To Lam has repeatedly called for a paradigm shift from cultural management to development orientation, emphasizing the balance between preservation and creativity. The draft law is expected to embody this principle by facilitating new connections rather than adding layers of management over existing specialized laws.
A particularly noteworthy aspect of the draft concerns intellectual property (IP). Many cultural enterprises lack tangible assets like land or factories; their primary assets often include scripts, characters, music, designs, software, brands, user communities, or exploitation rights. Traditional financial systems that prioritize tangible collateral hinder these businesses’ access to capital. The draft addresses this by proposing mechanisms for identifying, documenting, valuing, contributing, and using intellectual property in credit relationships, alongside frameworks for guarantees and risk-sharing. Successful implementation will require developing IP valuation markets, transaction data, intermediary organizations, and risk management tools.
International experiences offer valuable insights. South Korea’s cultural industry success stems from integrating creativity, training, finance, technology, intellectual property, distribution, and export. Its IP assets extend beyond initial products into films, animation, games, fashion, advertising, tourism, and souvenirs. The United Kingdom’s model emphasizes continuous policy evaluation through metrics such as employment, investment, business growth, exports, and resource efficiency, highlighting the importance of data-driven policy refinement.
Vietnam’s draft law thus advocates shifting focus from supporting isolated projects to nurturing entire value chains. Challenges lie not in talent or product creation but in intermediary stages that enable products to reach broader markets. For instance, a quality film without distribution has limited economic impact; weak copyright management diminishes creators’ returns; products lacking design, marketing, localization, and international connections struggle to become brands. Policies should support the full lifecycle of creative value—from ideation and IP development to production, distribution, commercialization, and reinvestment.
The draft law cautions against creating additional bureaucratic hurdles such as excessive categories, certifications, conditions, or approval points, which could stifle creative freedom and responsiveness to technological and market changes.
Regarding incentives, the draft recommends a cautious and targeted approach. While incentives are necessary in nascent market areas, over-categorization of activities as “specially prioritized” risks diluting policy focus and spreading state resources too thin. Instead, support should transition from designation-based incentives to results-based criteria, evaluating factors like IP creation, skilled job generation, market contribution, exports, technology transfer, and ecosystem innovation.
Similarly, ongoing budget investments should be contingent on measurable outcomes such as user engagement, operational efficiency, social impact, and support for creators and businesses. The draft includes provisions for evaluating infrastructure effectiveness and adjusting or terminating incentives for underperforming projects.
In sum, the draft Law on the Development of Cultural Industries aspires to be a development-oriented statute that bridges existing regulatory gaps. By fostering connections across the cultural ecosystem, enabling IP-based financing, and emphasizing measurable results, the law aims to unlock Vietnam’s cultural sector potential and enhance its contribution to national growth and soft power.
Related IIPLA reading
Vietnam Drafts Law to Strengthen Cultural Industry Ecosystem and Intellectual Property Financing Vietnam’s draft Law on the Development of Cultural Industries seeks to establish an integrated framework that bridges creators, intellectual property, finance, and markets. Emphasizing a value-chain approach, the law pr... Read the full IIPLA blog post: https://iipla.org/blog/vietnam-drafts-law-to-strengthen-cultural-industry-ecosystem-and-intellectual-property-financing