Few Indonesians patent inventions

Few Indonesians patent inventions

JAKARTA (JP): Director General of Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks Nico Kansil said yesterday that few Indonesians have registered their inventions, products, or trademarks.

Nico told the House of Representatives yesterday that, as of December 1994, only 2.6 percent of inventions registered with his office were by Indonesian inventors.

"Only 260 of the 9,930 inventions registered with the office since 1991 belong to Indonesians," he said. "Although only a few inventions have been registered by locals, that does not mean that the number of inventions here is similarly small."

He said that the registration procedures should be made known the public so that more people would register their inventions. Nico acknowledged that the law on patents passed in 1991 remains unknown to most Indonesians.

The directorate has refused to register some Indonesians' inventions because they were only a development of an existing invention and already listed as one of about 30 million items patented worldwide.

The directorate received 22,800 applications for trademark registration last year and another 1,840 applications in January this year. Of these applications, 20,7000 had been approved, Nico said. The directorate has received 18,980 applications for copyright registration since 1987, and has approved 12,500 of them.

Nico the Commission that the amount of money the government received from the registrations was increasing every year.

He said that the revenues had increased from Rp 890 million (US$402,000) in the fiscal year 1991/1992 to Rp 1.1 billion for 1992/1993 and to Rp 16 billion in 1993/1994 as a result of amendments to the law trademark law in 1992.

Nico said that his office will complete a revision of the three laws on copyrights, patents and trademarks by the end of the year.

He said the revision is designed to bring the laws into line with the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, which went into effect internationally on Jan. 1. However, for Indonesia and other developing countries the agreement does not become effective for another five years. (imn)