Yonex regains its brand name in Indonesia
Yonex regains its brand name in Indonesia
JAKARTA (JP): Yonex Kabushiki Kaisha, a major Japanese manufacturer of Yonex rackets, sports shoes and sportswear, has regained its well-known brand name in the country after six years of judicial fights against local trader Rabinder Singh of Toko Seth.
James.B. Lumenta of Amroos Law Consultants, which represents the Japanese company, said yesterday the Dec. 15, 1992 judgment of the district court and the Feb. 28, 1995 decision of the Supreme Court in favor of Yonex demonstrated the government's determination to protect intellectual property rights.
"The court judgments clearly show that we are not only good at making laws but also at enforcing them," Lumenta noted.
Alleged inadequate protection of intellectual property rights was cited by around 100 foreign and Indonesian businesspeople attending the Economist Conferences' Roundtable with the Indonesian government as one of the biggest hurdles to foreign investments in the country.
Participants in the three-day meeting, which ended on Tuesday and which was closed to the mass media, were generally impressed with the speed at which the Indonesian government has amended its laws on intellectual property rights.
Most of the businesspeople, however, were dissatisfied with what they saw as the utterly weak enforcement of the laws on patents, copyrights and trademarks.
Late last month, the U.S. based Business Software Alliance also accused Indonesia of being a hot spot with regard to intellectual property rights and urged the American government to include Indonesia on the priority list of countries for investigation.
Appreciation
Lumenta said Rabinder Singh registered the Yonex brand name in Indonesia in 1976 and had since pirated the trademark.
"The latest court judgments should greatly be appreciated because the first legal action by Yonex in 1986 for the cancellation of the Yonex trademark was dismissed both by the Jakarta Central District Court and Supreme Court," Lumenta noted.
The previous trademark law was based on a declaration system whereby the right to legal protection was granted to the first users of trademarks, but the new trademark law of 1992 is based on a registration system and prohibits the registration of already well-known brands within the country and overseas.
Encouraged by the new trade mark law, Yonex proceeded further with two separate parallel legal actions against Rabinder Singh, using the article of the Civil Code regarding unfair competition, and the article of the 1992 trademark law on well-known brands.
"Both legal actions ended in favor of Yonex Kabushiki Kaisha, thereby making it the rightful owner of the Yonex brand name," Lumenta added. (vin)