A strongly developing nation in the Southeast Asia region, Indonesia has been growing strongly in terms of its economy. With the world’s largest island country and 14^th largest in the world, this country is now home to various multinational corporations in the world. Its capital Jakarta is the world’s second most urban populous area. With its boundary touching major countries such as Singapore, India, Philippines, its relevance has more so increased due to its geopolitical relevance. Being a member of several multinational organizations such as the United Nations, World Trade Organisation, Non-aligned movement, etc. it can well be concluded that the relevance is not only limited to Southeast Asia but at the world level.

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With the growing impact on businesses, Indonesia has been effectively creating an environment where an effective intellectual property system ecosystem can be developed favoring corporations and industries. This ecosystem is working along for attracting investment which entails combating piracy and counterfeit goods. Combating such activities largely helps in attracting investment from the United States and Europe. Recently, the release of the Office of the United States Trade Representative's Priority Watch List (PWL) for 2021, places Indonesia on the list.

Building strong environment

Speaking at an interview with Asia IP, Fortuna Alyariza, Founding Partner (Advocate & IP Counsel) of FAIP Advocate & IP Counsels in Indonesia said,

"Indonesian business population has a better understanding of IP, and the Government also do the necessary to create a more promising IP protection environment in the country," she says. "The variables that must be improved are a mix, between the basic IP protection such as registration and other related prosecution systems, litigation system, and enforcement system. The efforts to build the IP protection has started a long time ago, however it is true that many people can only feel little by little a positive impact from the improvement of better IP protection within around 10 years ago, especially with the enactment of new Trademark Law, Patent Law, Copyrights Law and other related regulations in around 2014 – 2019 which replaced the previous ones."

She adds that back in 2006, the Indonesian Government has established the National IP Task Force to combat IP violations that at that time still spread widely in Indonesia. The establishment of the Task Force was officially supported by the creation of Presidential Decree No. 4 in the Year 2006. Since then, the Government has been continuing to conduct various activities to strengthen IP protection in Indonesia such as organizing training for different relevant stakeholders, IP socialization and education, strengthening the enforcement against IP violations, and many more. This task force was also created to remove Indonesia from the US Trade Representative (USTR) Priority Watch List and return better trust from the international business community.

"Further, in 2015 the Indonesian president Joko Widodo established Creative Economy Agency to boost national creative industries," she says. "One of the functions of the Agency is to develop public awareness and appreciation for intellectual property rights and optimize financial benefit for intellectual property rights holders, harmonization of regulations, strong cooperation as well as to create synergy across institutions and regions, optimize infrastructures, based on trustworthy governmental management that is transparent, effective, and democratic. The agency has been merged with the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy in 2019 and still actively continuing their works until now."

"Local markets are now more aware of the importance to use the original products," she says. "If 20 years ago many local business owners preferred to create something that was not original and imitating foreign well-known products, we can now feel that they have a different mindset. The local business population has now more courage to create products that shows local identity and/or creativity, as well as having their own IPR. Although sometimes they are still inspired by other well-known foreign brands, usually they make necessary efforts to differentiate their products from the well-known mark. Although we still find many IP conflicts, the online system of IPR still needs many improvements here and there, and Indonesia is still under the USTR Priority Watch List, we can however feel that the level of comfort of the business population has been step-by-step increased. Further, the younger generation, such as Indonesian millennials and generation Z have a much better understanding of the importance to respect the originality of a product. Many of them avoid buying fake products because they know that something wrong with that kind of attitude, and they are prouder to wear or use original products or alternatively “no-brand” products instead of buying the fake ones."

"Further, Indonesia may boost the innovation and creative industries which is one of the goals of the Government, since the creative industries are targeted to become one of the strongest sectors that contribute the income to the country in 2030," she says. "In view of the improvement of the business environment especially related with IP matters in the last 5 years, we believe that Indonesia is on the right track for the better future of IP protection. “

(Excerpts taken from - https://www.asiaiplaw.com/section/news-analysis/indonesia-builds-stronge...)

Author: Saransh Chaturvedi an associate at Global Patent Filing,  in case of any queries please contact/write back us at support@globalpatentfiling.com.