U.S. sees RI making progress in curbing piracy

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The U.S. government acknowledges that Indonesia has been making significant progress in the protection of intellectual property rights although the country remains on a watch list, according to Minister of Industry and Trade Rini M. Soewandi.

"The U.S. sees that we (Indonesia) have made several improvements," Rini told reporters on Wednesday.

She pointed to the new law and rulings related to the protection of intellectual property rights, and various campaign programs to educate businesses.

She added that her office and the police were planning to set up a special office aimed at handling problems related to piracy of products.

The U.S. government classifies countries into three categories according to their performance in intellectual property rights protection.

The Priority Foreign Country category is given to countries with the worst conduct in intellectual property rights protection, followed by Priority Watch List and Watch List categories.

In the past years, Indonesia has been criticized by the U.S. for a lack of seriousness in taking firm measures against the piracy of computer software, video compact discs, books and infringement of pharmaceutical patents.

Rini said that despite the positive assessment, efforts to improve intellectual property rights protection must be continued because the country was still in the Watch List category with a possible sanction of an embargo against local export products by the U.S. government.

Meanwhile, marketing director of PT Microsoft Indonesia Ari Kunwidodo told The Jakarta Post that significant improvements in intellectual property rights protection could only be judged by the number of pirated computer software products this year.

He said that based on the Business Software Alliance report, in 2000, some 89 percent of computer software products here were pirated.

He said that if piracy activities declined, then there was improvement in intellectual property rights protection.

Ari urged the House of Representatives to quickly approve the proposed law on computer software to help curb piracy.