Region: Indonesia

The Design Office has taken an important step towards minimizing abuse of the design registration system with the introduction of a basic novelty examination. The absence of any substantive examination of design applications up until now has led to the registration of many non-novel designs, and created a system that is open to abuse.

01 June 2004

In a case opposing the licensee of Swiss company Davidoff and Indonesian Company Sumatra Tobacco, the Supreme Court has ordered the deletion of Sumatra Tobacco's DAVIDOFF trademark for cigarettes. It found that the Indonesian company's mark misled consumers as to the origin of its products and was not well known, unlike the Swiss company's mark.

21 October 2003

The Supreme Court has sentenced Tjandra Sugiono, the former general manager of PT Martina Berto, a local cosmetics company, to four months in prison for having registered and used the domain name 'mustika-ratu.com' in bad faith. PT Mustika Ratu is Martina Berto's main competitor.

08 July 2003

In <i>Reemtsma Cigarettenfabriken GmbH v NV Sumatra Tobacco Trading Company</i>, Swiss company Davidoff has lost its fight to have an Indonesian company's registration of DAVIDOFF deleted. The court found that although the local company had produced just 150 branded cigarettes, the mark could not be deleted on the grounds of non-use.

22 April 2003

Indonesia has implemented new, simplified procedures for the renewal of trademark registrations. Trademark owners are no longer required to submit evidence of commercial use at the time of renewal, and an application for renewal may be filed at any time during the year prior to the registration's expiration.

31 March 2003

The Directorate General of Intellectual Property Rights has introduced a hearing as part of the trademark registration process. As a result, if an application is to be rejected, the applicant may now file a response. If the response is dismissed and the trademark application rejected, the applicant may appeal.

06 March 2003