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Indonesia taken off US Priority Watch List
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(Courtesy of DJKI)
A
n Indonesian government delegation met with the American Chamber of Commerce and the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC) and Pharma to obtain recommendations regarding Indonesia’s Priority Watch List (PWL) status in Washington, DC on Nov. 5.
The Indonesian representatives included the Directorate General of Intellectual Property (DJKI) of the Law and Human Rights Ministry and the National Police.
"Thanks to everyone, after we worked together, finally for the first time Pharma proposed to change Indonesia's status from PWL to WL, as Pharma saw our efforts in developing a patent system in Indonesia, we were especially finally able to find a solution for all parties by revising Article 20, which has been causing problems," explained Indonesia’s director of patents, layout design of integrated circuits and trade secrets, Dede Mia Yusanti, referring to the revision of Law 2016/13 on patents, especially Article 20.
Dede expressed his appreciation for the cooperation that has been established so far, especially in the patent field. He further stated that Indonesia was actively making efforts in order to be taken off the PWL.
He also stated that Indonesia had reached the stage of publicizing, both online and offline, the new measures to enforce the law, which will begin to be implemented in 2022. Through this meeting, Johnson Travis, the IACC's vice president of legislative relations, expressed his appreciation for Indonesia's move to hold a meeting in order to demonstrate its strong commitment to getting removed from the PWL.
Travis applauded the effort. “Despite the recommendations we made in last year's report. We provide commentary to over 36 different countries and Indonesia is one of the very few countries that have taken the opportunity to try to engage and have a dialogue in order to make progress on the issues we raise,” he said.
Daulat P. Silitonga, director of cooperation and empowerment of intellectual property (IP), hoped for further cooperation between the DJKI and the US Chamber of Commerce and Pharma to be able to help Indonesia lose its PWL status and create security to invest in Indonesia. Getting off the PWL will improve Indonesia’s attractiveness to foreign investment and Daulat wanted to reiterate that US investments were more than welcome in Indonesia.
The head of the sub-directorate of special economic crimes (Dittupidexus) of the Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) of the National Police, Moh. Samsu hoped that this collaboration with the US would make it easier to take action against IP violations.
"We hope that with this cooperation, we can not only use the law to actively take action. But it can also take advantage of rights holders working with the US Chamber and others,” said Samsu.
Anom Wibowo, director of investigation and dispute resolution, stated firmly that the DJKI was ready to resolve cases of IP violations against US companies. “Today I met with Sun Chang and asked for data on IP violations, I hope Johnson Travis can also provide data on cases of IP violations, we will investigate and will report to you,” he said.
The Indonesian government has made previous efforts to remove Indonesia’s PWL status, including by re-establishing an Operations Task Force (Satgas Ops) for PWL Status Management consisting of the DJKI, the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM), the Directorate of Customs and Excise at the Finance Ministry, the National Police and the Communications and Information Ministry.
In this collaboration, the Directorate of Customs and Excise of the Finance Ministry will assist in monitoring the circulation of counterfeit drugs and food that violate IP rights. Meanwhile, the BPOM will play a role in joint operations in law enforcement against counterfeit drugs and food that violate IP rights in physical and online markets. This arrangement is believed to provide a quick solution to the wishes of the US Trade Representative, who wants Indonesia to improve existing IP regulations.
The Task Force has also collaborated with e-commerce companies such as Tokopedia, Blibli, Shopee, Lazada and Bukalapak. The e-commerce platforms have declared their support for and commitment to the eradication of pirated goods, as they have implemented special policies for handling cases of IP rights violations on their platforms.
With Indonesia's exit from the PWL, the government hopes to bring in more investors to Indonesia as well as to get a program to reduce import duty rates (the Generalized System of Preferences), which will enable economic growth in Indonesia through the encouragement of foreign investment.
