Ignorance blamed for piracy of intellectual property

JAKARTA (JP): Two prominent academics this week acknowledged that scientists and inventors' ignorance of their intellectual property rights contributed to rampant piracy and plagiarism.

The two academics, interviewed separately by The Jakarta Post in connection with the House of Representatives' amendments to laws on intellectual property rights, described how ignorance meant inventors were often unaware of material losses inflicted on them.

Eko Budihardjo, Dean of the School of Engineering at the University of Diponegoro in Semarang, Central Java, said this week that scientists and inventors rarely registered their inventions, let alone request patent rights.

He blamed the situation on the local culture which gave no room for the cultivation of intellectual copyright.

"Scientists here never apply for protection of their intellectual rights, because the practice is regarded as a part of western culture," Budiardjo said.

He said scientists were not yet familiar with application procedures for property rights and patenting, and rarely felt their ignorance caused material losses.

As an example, he cited Balinese artists who had never applied for patents on their works: "This has given foreigners the freedom to copy their works."

The professors conceded not all research results had commercial benefits.

"Inventions in engineering such as new techniques to build expressways, certainly need patenting, but theoretical inventions like in physics and biology, which are not commercial and popularly used, are difficult to patent," he said.

He said his university had recently launched a campaign to raise awareness of intellectual property rights by establishing a council to select inventions which could be patented.

The council's presence was expected to help fight piracy and plagiarism in the university, he said.

Umar Fahmi Ahmadi who heads the University of Indonesia's research body said yesterday the problem was also in scientists being obligated to register their work as soon as possible.

"In the scientific tradition, the result of research is usually made public so that others can decide on its worth. But the irony here is that once it is announced anyone can freely copy it, making it no longer eligible for patenting," he said.

Umar said the search for funding of research projects often involved the researcher making elaborate presentations of a research plan.

"This is where the project usually leaks."

He proposed the establishment of a special institution to coordinate researchers, the results of whose work would be patented. The institution would help researchers find funding and enable them to work confidentially.

The National Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said there would be no problem with copyright in Indonesia if researchers were more aware of their services; it has possessed its own department for arranging patent rights for some time.

"An awareness of the importance of patent rights is quite high here," an official of the institute, who did not wish to be named, said.

LIPI had its own patent and copyrights consultant and would arrange all rights needed by all its scientists, he said. (12/aan)