Copyright, trademark or patent — which one
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Three rights stop three different things. Choosing wrong is not less protection — it is no protection where you actually need it.
These three are habitually lumped together as "registering copyright", but they protect three entirely different things.
The decisive question
Do not ask which is strongest. Ask: what do you want to stop someone doing?
Stopping people copying your content, images or code is copyright. Stopping them trading under a similar name or logo is a trademark. Stopping them building products using your technical solution is a patent or utility solution. Stopping them making products that look like yours is an industrial design. Stopping a departing employee taking your formula to a competitor is trade secret law plus contract.
Three core differences
How you get it. Copyright is automatic and free. Trademarks and patents require an application, examination and fees, and can be refused.
What is protected. Copyright protects the specific expression — someone rewriting the same idea in their own words does not infringe. A trademark protects a sign in trade for the classes you registered. A patent protects a technical solution — even against someone who devised it independently.
That last point is worth pausing on: a patent is the only one of the three that stops independent creation. Under copyright, if two people write similar works without copying each other, both hold rights.
Duration. Copyright is longest — life plus 50 years. Patents run 20 years without renewal. Trademarks run 10 years but renew indefinitely, so in practice they can outlast everything.
Example: a mobile app
One software product can touch all four at once. Source code is copyright (automatic; register for evidence at VND 600,000). The app name and logo are a trademark (must be registered, in the right Nice classes). The interface artwork is copyright as applied art. The core algorithm is a patent or a trade secret — computer programs as such are not patentable, though a technical solution using software may be. The user database is a trade secret needing confidentiality agreements and access controls.
If the budget covers only one, choose the trademark. It is the only right you simply do not have without registering, and the only one someone else can take from you.
The commonest mistake
Registering copyright in a logo and assuming the brand is protected.
A copyright certificate for a work of applied art confirms you own the artwork. That helps against the designer who made it, or against outright copying of the image. It does not give exclusivity over the sign in trade, and it does not stop a competitor registering a similar mark and forcing you to abandon the very logo you copyrighted.
If you are unsure, run the advisor tool — a few questions and it points to the right for your situation.