Mixed reaction to laws on intellectual property rights
Mixed reaction to laws on intellectual property rights
By Listiana Operananta
JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives' approval of the
amendments to laws on intellectual property rights were welcomed
by lawyers but rejected as inadequate by some governmental
organizations yesterday.
Some said the laws would help boost technological invention,
trade and investment in Indonesia.
The House unanimously passed the amended laws in a session
yesterday after deliberating them for two months.
The laws on copyright, on patents and on trademarks were
approved yesterday afternoon.
Amendments were made so that the laws would match the
requirements of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights, including trade in counterfeit
goods of the World Trade Organization, which Indonesia ratified
in 1994.
The copyright law now includes a provision that copyright on
unpublished inventions by anonymous parties will be owned by the
state, and published inventions by anonymous parties will be
owned by their publishers.
The new law also stipulates that plagiarism of up to 10
percent of an original work will not be considered as violating
the law.
The new law says computer program rights will be protected for
50 years, instead of 25 years as stipulated before the
amendments.
The Law on Patents now stipulates that an invention's degree
of novelty means that it is not a continuation of a previous
work.
"Parallel importation" or the import of copy of patented
products is allowed by the law as long as it has never been
produced in Indonesia.
The revamped Law on Trademarks says that protection for
renowned products is given based on the initiative of their
owners. Protection can also be given by the Trademark Bureau of
the Ministry of Justice refusing to accept an application for the
same trademark.
Many experts and lawyers reacted yesterday in favor of the
amendments.
Bambang Priyono and Bambang Suryowidodo of Amroos Law
Consultants who specialize in patent and trademark rights
respectively, said the revised patent and trademarks laws were
satisfactory but needed further clarification through government
regulations.
"However, the newly-revised laws are still unclear about the
novelty element because they stress that a request for patent
protection can be accepted as long as it has never been a part of
an existing work. The old law was much clearer because it only
stressed the novelty," Priyono said.
He said that parallel importation, which is allowed under the
new law, would upset businesses, such as pharmacies, because
products invented overseas could now be patented here.
Companies from more than one country could seek to patent a
product here simultaneously, he said.
"I understand that this is to protect Indonesia from being
just a market place (for other countries' products) but the
government should make a regulation to clarify it," he said.
Bambang Suryowidodo said the new laws were good, especially
because an application for trademark protection now could be made
for each class of a product or service.
But the term "famous trademarks" needs further clarification,
he said on the article on "Protection of Famous Trademarks".
"Famous trademarks are relative. One trademark can be famous
in one place but not in another. So the law should give further
explanation on this," he said.
Suryowidodo said that types of famous products should be
clarified to avoid registration of identical product names
belonging to different product types. He cited "Mitsubishi car"
and "Mitsubishi paint".
But not all were happy about the new laws. The Pesticide
Action Network Indonesia and Walhi, a non-governmental
organization on the environment, issued a joint statement
yesterday against the Patent Law.
They said the revised law would allow patent applications for
all inventions from living organisms, including humans, animals
and plants.
The activists said that even humans could be patented.
The law has a provision that allows the patent of living
organisms as long as it does not violate order or morality.
The definition of inventions and inventions on living organism
was too broad, they said. It needed further study because it
could be interpreted that living organisms can be patented.
Walhi and the network said the patent of living organisms was
controversial, and could violate ethics. They urged that the laws
not be enacted.