Govt vows action on intellectual property rights
Govt vows action on intellectual property rights
JAKARTA (JP): The government will step up its campaign against violations of intellectual property rights and will try to increase public awareness of the importance of the issue, Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono said yesterday.
Moerdiono said the government would mount raids against those involved in intellectual piracy, give harsher sentences to the pirates and make every effort to prevent the importation of pirated products.
Moerdiono was speaking after a meeting between Attorney General Singgih, Minister of Justice Oetojo Oesman and Police Chief Gen. Banurusman, in which they evaluated the protection of intellectual property rights in Indonesia.
The minister said that, so far, penalties against violators of copyright had been very lenient. "We will get tougher against them," he said.
He said that the escalation of the campaign had nothing to do with the accusations made by "a certain country" against Indonesia. "It is merely domestic law enforcement," he said.
Indonesia has been said to be the next target of the United States' anti-copyright piracy campaign, after its Trade Representatives succeeded in their campaign against violations of copyrights, patents and trademarks in China.
A computer software manufacturer in the U.S. has also reportedly lobbied its government to investigate allegations that Indonesia had become a haven for pirated computer software.
Moerdiono admitted yesterday that the authorities were facing difficulties in their anti-piracy drive because of a lack of law enforcement resources.
Complex
"The problem is complex and intellectual property rights are a new issue here," he said.
Moerdiono said that the Directorate of Patents of the Ministry of Justice had received 10,000 applications for patents but that, so far, only 178 had been processed. Indonesia passed the Patent Act in 1989.
"This shows that the ability of our staff to judge whether a patent deserves protection or not is still very limited," Moerdiono said.
He said that the directorate had received about 32,000 applications for trademark registration, 5,000 applications for service trademark registration and thousands of applications for trademark extensions.
Moerdiono said that, of that number, only 26,000 applications had been processed.
The minister said the government would work hard to increase the quality and size of the directorate's personnel.
"The implementation of intellectual property rights is important for this country because it will help boost human resources development," he said. (tis)