Abolish the IP Laws to save the Economy

Between 1960 and 1990, four Asian countries Taiwan, South Korea, Hongkong and Singapore, have developed their industries a lot much faster compared to any other countries in the world.

Many factors have been mentioned as the basis for their industrial progress, but according to Wikipedia the most determining factor is the Traditional Philosophies of the hard working people of those countries.
Meanwhile, Scripted wrote that such progress was achieved because during those years those countries have not been serious in protecting Intellectual Property (IP) right.

In this regards, I read a blog post in Legal Blog Watch about two Economists at Washington University i.e. Michele Boldrin and David Levine, who claimed to know how to revive the current economy crisis without any stimulus policy. Their proposal is to abolish the Patent, Trademark & Copyright laws which they said have discouraged innovation and prevent inventions from entering the marketplace.
In their book "Against Intellectual Property Monopoly" they said:
"So-called intellectual property is in fact an 'intellectual monopoly' that hinders rather than helps the competitive free market regime that has delivered wealth and innovation to our doorsteps,"
They said that there's plenty of protection and opportunities to make money for inventors and creators. And there are lots of ways to make money without IP.
However, the economists realized that it is impossible to eliminate the IP laws drastically, so they will propose an incremental approach to gradually reduce the scope of those laws.

Although the IP Laws may discouraged innovations and prevent inventions of certain people, especially those who have bad faith, however as any laws, the IP Laws are needed to ensure legal certainty and justice for the whole society in general.

Intellectual Property Piracy

For many years, Indonesia has been regarded by countries like the U.S.A, the European Union, Japan, as a haven for Intellectual Property Rights piracy.

In order to improve our country’s image, our government and parliament have promulgated laws to protect domestic and foreign Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights and Industrial Designs, and punish violators. Besides, we have ratified International Intellectual Property Rights conventions and treaties. Further, our law enforcement agencies have implemented those laws, e.g by regular police raids in shopping places selling pirate products and prosecute the pirates in courts. However, foreign and local pirate products keep on circulating in many modern & traditional shopping places throughout Indonesia.

Due to this fact, foreign countries and international organizations have demanded Indonesia to improve the protection of those rights; some even threatened to impose trade sanction if our country doesn’t improve protection of those rights.
Bisnis Indonesia/Suwantin Oemar reported that the United States Trade Representative is currently evaluating the protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Indonesia. According to the Director General of Intellectual Property Rights Andy Sommeng, one of the objectives of said evaluation is to push for amendment of Intellectual Property laws in Indonesia.

In view of the above, I felt that our country can eliminate or at least minimize infringement of Intellectual Property Rights, if we consistently implement laws regarding Patent, Trademark, Copyright and Industrial Designs. Besides that, considering that many of the pirate products are imported, the Customs Office and the Department of Trade should also be involved, so that cheap imported pirate products would not be allowed to enter our country.

HABITAT Patent Case

The Legal Battle between PT. ESPI Swindat Pacific and PT. Hot-Hed Indonesia seems to be escalating from a Criminal Prosecution about Trademark at the District Court of South Jakarta, into a Civil Lawsuit about Patent at the Commercial Court of Central Jakarta.

According to Hukumonline, PT Hot-Hed Indonesia has submitted a Civli Lawsuit against PT ESPI at the Commercial Court of Central Jakarta, to claim for the Patent Right on an Invention titled HABITAT i.e. a Space specially designed for Under Sea Welding.
As the ground for said Claim is the certificate of Patent granted by the Indonesian Directorate of Patent in 1996 to Hot-Hed Inc. U.S.A (owner of PT Hot-Hed Indonesia).
And according to the Patent Law No. 14 Year 2001 Article 16 Par.1, a Holder of a Patent has an Exclusive Right to execute the Patent and to forbid others from doing the same without its approval. Beside that the Patent HABITAT has been registered in the USA since 1991.
As Plaintiff, PT Hot-Het accused PT ESPI of illegally using the HABITAT technology without obtaining prior approval from PT Hot-Hed. Due to this allegation, PT Hot-Hed claimed PT ESPI to pay a compensation amounting to US$ 3,4 million for the losess it has sufferred.
Meanwhile, the attorney of PT. ESPI i.e. Fahmi Assegaf questioned the Plaintiff's eligibility to file the Patent Lawsuit, considering the fact that the Patent Holder of HABITAT is Hot-Hed Inc USA, not the Plaintiff (PT. Hot-Hed Indonesia). He said that if the Palintiff is a holder of a Licence of HABITAT, it should register said Lisence in Indonesia, which they did not. Further, he denied that HABITAT is not an Invention, in stead it is a Public Domain. This is proven by the fact that in the past PT. Hot-Hed's reports to the Police regarding Patent violation has been ignored.

While the Civil Lawsuit is being tried by the Commercial Court of Central Jakarta, we can only hope that the Council of Judges would eventually pass a Fair Judgement according to the Patent Law, This is necessary because the rival parties are foreigners, therefore any discrepancy would mar our Court's image which is certainly not good at a time when we badly need foreign investors.

Pic:BigFoto

Protection of Inventions

Intellectual Property Right awareness among Indonesian students and lecturers is still very low, according to the Chief of Intellectual Property Right Team of the Department of Education i.e Professor Soeprapto in an interview with Kompas on Monday 17 November 2008. He explained that from 1985 until 2007, universities/institutes only submitted 419 Patent applications, which is definitely very low compared to the total of 2.800 universities/institutes in Indonesia.

As a comparison, Prof. Soeprapto said that Japan has 370,000 Patent applications a year, and India has 17,000 a year. While in Indonesia, only 419 Patent applications were submitted during a period of 23 years. The main obstacle is because most of the scientific works were merely repetitions of previous works, therefore they are ineligible to be considered as Patent which should fulfill 3 conditions: Novelty, Verifiability & Applicability. He added that awareness regarding Intellectual Property Right is still low and most students & lecturer think that Patent application is expensive. Actually in 2008 the government has allocated special incentive for 50 Patent applications amounting to Rp 7.5 million per application, but only 21 were sumitted. And for 2009, incentive has been allocated for 100 Intellectual Property Right applications, including 30 Patent applications. He further stated that out of the 2.800 universities/institutes, only 5 actively submitted Patent applications, i.e. Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), 10th November Institute of Technology, Gajahmada University and Brawijaya University.

Considering the above it is very important to socialize the incentives granted by government for submission of Patent Application, that way our scientists in general and students & lecturers in particular would want to submit Patent Application to protect their inventions. If the scientists know that it is not so difficult and expensive to do so, they would have peace of mind and eager to create more inventions.

Image:BigFoto