Enforcement strategies are often built around criminal and civil infringement proceedings, but regulatory compliance with national standards legislation is also worthy of consideration.
While Indonesia does have a workable intellectual property regime, it has it’s limitations. One notable weakness is a lack of protection against acts of unfair competition. Coupled with the fact that trademark rights are administered on a first-to-file basis, the absence of this protection is significant - no registration no trademark right, and also no option to address acts of unfair competition. Where there is no infringement of registered trademark rights, it is necessary to look for alternative causes of action, and non-compliance with national standards legislation is a good one.
Indonesia’s House of Representatives passed a Standardisation Law (No. 20 of 2014) on 26 August 2014, which codified previously existing regulations. It is an offence to sell certain products in Indonesian without first obtaining an SNI (Standar Nasional Indonesia - Indonesian National Standard) registration. A list of products for which it is compulsory to obtain SNI is available on the National Standardization Agency of Indonesia website (see here), and are mostly consumer-facing goods. Authorities can address non-compliance with confiscation of goods, withdrawal from market, and/or criminal prosecution. Failures to comply with the Standardisation Law can also breach provisions of the Consumer Protection Law (No. 8 of 1999), which can be further grounds for criminal prosecution.
Securing SNI registrations can be regarded as arduous, especially for smaller businesses, and may be skipped entirely. Even in larger businesses, proper protections may not have been secured for every required product. Ministry of Trade figures quoted in a recent Jakarta Post article (see here) reveal that the Directorate-General for Standards and Consumer Protection addressed 601 cases of products that failed to meet national standards in 2013 (the latest figures available). And those are the cases that the Directorate was able to address with its limited resources. Many businesses are not full compliant, which makes SNI compliance a useful enforcement tool.
