South Korean confectionery company Orion said Monday that it has recently won a trademark suit against a Vietnamese company for its signature product Choco Pie. 

According to Orion, a Vietnamese confectionery company was found to have been using Choco Pie trademark for their products in 2015. Orion has been using Choco Pie trademark since 1994 in Vietnam. 

Orion reported the case to the Vietnam Intellectual Property Research Institute as trademark infringement and recently received a result that the Vietnamese company violated Orion’s trademark rights. 

Despite the decision, the local company brought the case to the higher National Office of Intellectual Property of Vietnam, demanding the cancellation of Orion’s Choco Pie trademark. In 2017, the NOIP ruled in favor of Orion, stating that the Choco Pie trademark exclusively belongs to Orion and dismissed the local company’s claim.

Orion’s Choco Pie has been a steady seller in the local snacks and candy market in Vietnam, taking up 64 percent of the market share as of last year. An average of almost 500 million Choco Pies are sold each year, the company said. 

In 2006, Orion set up a factory in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and recorded 1 trillion won ($940 million) of accumulated sales in 2015. Its sales hit record-high 222 billion won in the last year, according to the company. 

By Kim Da-sol (ddd@heraldcorp.com)