TMO admin updates

With the new year, the Trademark Office has introduced some administrative updates that should improve efficiency.

From 4 January 2016, trademark application forms (Form IV) are being scanned at the time of filing, and uploaded to IPAS - the Trademark Office’s internal database.  Eventually documents may be made publicly accessible online, as is the case with many foreign IP offices.  This represents an improvement in access to information - one of the biggest challenges in legal practice in Indonesia.  It also represents a step forward in improving compliance and accountability, making it difficult to change filing details.

The IP Office filing counters have also been reorganised.  Now, we have:

• counters 1 to 4 attending to trademark prosecution;
• counter 5 attending to industrial design prosecution;
• counters 6 and 7 attending to patent prosecution; 
• counter 8 attending to copyright prosecution; 
• counter 9 attending to patent annuities and
• counter 10 is reserved for backup. 

(IP Office filing counters)

Movie piracy - the accessibility argument

With the launch of Netflix in Indonesia today, consumers of illegally downloaded films have lost one frequently used justification.

One reason that is often given as justification for knowingly downloading illegal content (and breaching the Copyright Law) is that it is difficult to purchase original films.  There is some truth to this.  There are a very limited number of retailers that sell original DVDs in Indonesia, and those that do generally have a much more limited range than retailers selling pirate DVDs.  And the online space is littered with illegal content sharing sites.  That’s the reality of a market which the USTR describes as featuring “rampant piracy” (see our post here) and which Indonesia’s own industry associates say has very high rates of music and film piracy (see our post here).

There’s also the cost argument - that pirated content is cheaper, or even free.  And while this remains an issue, Netflix has closed the gap.  Monthly Netflix subscriptions are being offered from IDR109,000 per month (see here), and pirated DVDs retail for between IDR5,000 and IDR10,000 each.  Add to the mix that Netflix content won’t be camcorded (cue people getting up and walking out of a cinema as the credits roll) and that it’s being made available in the comfort of one’s home, and it starts to sound like a pretty good deal.

So what arguments are left for those that insist on downloading illegal content?  Another common one is that Hollywood has already generated enough income from its films.  But we’ll leave a discussion about the rule of law for another post.

Piracy in Indonesia

Piracy is commonly identified as a major IP problem in Indonesia.  The USTR cites “rampant piracy” as one of the reasons Indonesia is included in its Priority Watch List (see our post here).

According to a Jakarta Post article (see here), the Indonesian Association of Artists, Singers, Composers and Recording Businessmen (PAPPRI) estimates that 95.7 percent of music sales in Indonesia are pirated, and the industry is losing IDR 4  trillion (around US$279 million) annually.

Both Police and the Creative Economy Agency have been talking about stepping up enforcement efforts in 2016.  This could involve more website blocks, and more police raids.  At this stage, in the absence of representative collecting societies, artists need to register complaints before enforcement action can be taken (under the current Copyright Law, infringement is a complaint-based crime).

(a DVD/music stall in Ambassador Mall, Jakarta - Jakarta Post)

New patent & trademark laws

Here’s wishing all our readers a happy new year in 2016!  We hope it proves to be another good year for IP in Indonesia.

We have received a number of enquiries about the new patent and trademarks laws we were expecting to see passed in 2015.  Both were included in the 2015 National Legislation Program (see our post here).  However, the House of Representatives did not have a good year, and of a total of 37 listed priority laws (which included the trademark and patent laws) it managed to pass only three (see Jakarta Post article here).

Sources at the Directorat-General of Intellectual Property are (informally) saying that they expect the laws will be passed around March 2016.