The Indonesian Patent System

Indonesian IP Office

The governmental agency in charge of handling intellectual property rights in Indonesia is the Directorate General of Intellectual Property Rights located in Tangerang.

Filing Patents in Indonesia

An application for a patent in Indonesia must contain a patent order form, specifications, claims, and any necessary drawings. In addition, any portion of the specifications not in Indonesian must be accompanied by an Indonesian translation. If the applicant is different than the inventor, filing an assignment document is mandatory.

Patent term for patents in Indonesia is 20 years and for utility models and designs it is 15 years.

PCT National Stage in Indonesia

Indonesia is a member of the PCT and the Paris Convention. When an application is filed as a PCT National Stage application, the national stage entry deadline is 31 months from the PCT application’s priority date. Filing power of attorney at the national stage is required. Indonesian language translation extensions are not available. There are no fees for excess claims.

Recent IP Legal Trends in Indonesia

One of the most significant disincentives for growth of foreign business in Indonesia, according to Indonesian patent attorneys, has been poor IP enforcement due to insufficient resources available for infringement litigation. One of the most vulnerable areas of industry has been the pharmaceutical industry. Even though Indonesian laws allow for criminal penalties for infringers, Indonesian patent lawyer state that standard of proof for criminal convictions has been too high to achieve effective IP enforcement.

In February 2010, central enforcement agencies in Indonesia, police, Customs and the public prosecutors have agreed to share and centralize their databases in order to achieve better transparency and improve protection of IP rights in Indonesia. However, this improvement has been slowed down due to lack of public awareness as well as because some of the leading IP pioneers have been retiring in recent years.