DGIP anti-corruption policy

Earlier this month, Directorate-General of Intellectual Property (“DGIP”) officials signed a statement of commitment to a policy of control gratification at the DGIP.

The blog of the Director-General of the DGIP (see here) reports that the document was signed by all officials and staff of the DGIP in front of the Director-General himself on 14 March 2014.  In summary, the statement says:

• the DGIP will not offer or make any corrupt payments or facilitation payments;
• the DGIP will not receive any such payments; and
• the DGIP will set up an anti-corruption division, where reports of corrupt payments will be received.

The photograph below (from the Director-General’s blog) shows the Director-General (far left) witnessing the signing of the statement.  Also in this photograph is the Pak Razilu (Director of IT), Pak Bambang Iriana (Director of Trademarks), Ibu Corrie (Director of Patents) dan Ibu Yuslisar Ningsih (Director of Copyright).

This is a positive step forward in tackling what is a huge problem.  Authorities have a lot of work to do to regain the public’s confidence, following a high-profile corruption scandal in the judiciary late last year (see our post here).