Entrepreneurs asked to renew trademarks

JAKARTA (JP): Director General of Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks S. Kayatmo said yesterday he had given entrepreneurs three months to renew their trademarks, as required by a new regulation.

The government instruction, effective as of Feb. 1 states that all trademark renewal applications should be supported with a statement from the authority in charge of the relevant business sector certifying that the marks are being used.

The new regulation has sparked controversy with critics saying it lacked adequate legal basis because it was inconsistent with the 1992 law on marks.

Lawyer J.B. Lumenta of Amroos Law Consultants said the policy was prejudicial to trademark owners and to Indonesia's image as a member of the Geneva-based World Trade Organization.

Indonesia is a party to the GATT Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights.

Lumenta said Article 10, section three of the law stressed the advance stipulation related to the trademark was regulated under the government regulation not the director general's instruction.

According to the lawyer, Article 8 of Government Regulation No. 23/1993 on the procedure for the application of trademark registrations, applications for the renewal of trademark registration must be accompanied by a declaration that the trademark is still being used.

Lumenta said the regulation stated that the declaration could be submitted or made by the trademark owner or be issued by the authority in charge of the relevant business.

"It should be an alternative, but the instruction has changed it into an obligation.

"Why did the director general did not propose changing the government regulation?," asked Lumenta.

The instruction also requires that applicants should give the full name of the intended marks in case they use abbreviations or their Indonesian translations.

"In contrast, article 10 section two of the law does not require the meaning, it only requires a translation of trademarks which use a foreign language, especially those which consist of non-Latin letters or numerals which are unusual in Indonesia," Lumenta said.

Reacting to the criticism, Kayatmo said, "Why do lawyers only question the government regulation but fail to discuss the law on which the instruction is based?"

Kayatmo said the directorate general was ready to help trademark owners if they had difficulties translating their marks into Indonesian.

"All that will be needed is a dictionary. So what's the problem?" he asked.

He also denied reports that 200 trademark owners had lost their rights after the new requirement was imposed.

"What happened was that we sent the application documents back to be submitted with more documents as required by the new regulation." (05)