RI still novice on intellectual property rights

JAKARTA (JP): If foreigners keep on pressing Indonesia about its failure to adequately protect intellectual property rights, that is largely because Indonesia is still a novice when it comes to the concept, a government official said yesterday.

Bambang Kesowo, an aide to Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono, said at a seminar on intellectual property rights that, even among people involved in the law and its enforcement, knowledge of the subject is still poor.

"The knowledge of the law enforcement officers and legal practitioners is deplorable and that is because the subject is not taught at law schools," said Bambang, who was a member of the presidential team that drafted Indonesia's copyright law.

The one-day seminar was held to mark the 50th anniversary of the Attorney General's Office, which jointly organized the event with Bank Dagang Nasional Indonesia, the Business Software Alliance and the Suara Pembaruan daily.

Indonesia tightened its copyrights legislation in 1987, following strong criticisms from industrialized countries.

More recently, United States officials named Indonesia as one of their next targets as Washington intensifies its campaign to compel developing countries to provide better protection for American-registered intellectual property rights. Washington has already secured greater cooperation from China, after threatening to withdraw some trade privileges.

Despite the 1987 legislation, complaints that Indonesia has failed to properly enforce the law and that there are ongoing violations of copyrights have continued.

The government is currently drafting amendments to the 1987 copyright law to comply with some of the terms in the new General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Director General of Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks Nico Kansil said yesterday that intellectual property rights would have to receive proper protection if Indonesia wanted to improve its foreign trade.

"Proper implementation of copyrights will enhance the quality of locally-made products for export, thereby boosting the image of Indonesia's national industry in the world," Nico said.

Nico also emphasized the importance of improving the knowledge of intellectual property law for judges, prosecutors, lawyers, police officers, students and the general public. He said this could be achieved through education programs including public seminars.

"The new (copyrights) law will, among other things, protect industrial designs and trade secrets", he added.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Training and Education Center of the Justice Ministry, Rasmin Saleh, said that the nature of copyrights violations in Indonesia had changed.

While in the 1980s most violations were in relation to music recordings, such infringements now represent only 15 percent of total violations, he said. These days the government needs to clamp down on copyright violations of computer software, he said.

Rasmin said that education regarding intellectual property rights was one way to cope with the piracy problem. "In this case, we need to cooperate with other nations and international organizations, such as the U.S.-based Business Software Alliance, regarding training programs," he said. (03).