Foreign entities have no freehold rights to land ownership in Indonesia. Foreign investors' land holdings are usually obtained through long-term lease agreements (normally for 30 years) with the government or private parties. These lease holdings can be used as collateral. Government regulations allow mortgages to be registered against real property and seagoing vessels in their appropriate registries, as well as security interests in chattel, equipment, accounts receivable, and insurance proceeds. A search facility currently exists only for mortgages.
The US government in May 2003 again placed Indonesia on the Special 301 Priority Watch List for inadequate protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), where Indonesia has been since the 1980s. The Indonesian government has steadily improved the regulatory and legal framework for the protection of IPR, however, enforcement continues to fall short. US businesses reported that Indonesia ranks as the third largest producer of pirated products. They maintain that 90 percent of all CDs (audio, video, and software) sold in Indonesia are pirated and estimate that industry suffered losses in 2002 of USD 253 million, a 33 percent increase over prior year.
Indonesia's new copyright law (Law 19/2002) takes effect on July 29, 2003. The new law increases fines up to Rp 500 million (USD 62,000) and provides for prison terms of up to five years for dealers of pirated materials. The law directs cases of alleged copyright violations to be tried in commercial courts, and for the rendering of judgments within 90 days. As part of the law's implementation, the Ministry of Industry and Trade plans to issue optical disc regulations that would enhance the government's ability to identify and prosecute producers of pirated products. In an effort to enhance interagency coordination on enforcement, Indonesia's Ministry of Justice recently formed an IPR task force made up of the national police, customs, attorney general, judiciary, and members of the computer software and entertainment industries. The task force has already conducted a few high profile raids.
Indonesia is a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization, but has not yet ratified the related WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT). The Ministry of Justice prepared a Presidential decree ratifying WPPT last year, and Justice officials expect the President to sign the decree sometime in 2003. Indonesia acceded to numerous international conventions on intellectual property rights, including the Paris Convention for the Protection of Intellectual Property; the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (with a reservation on Article 33); the Patent Cooperation Treaty; Trademark Law Treaty; the Nice Agreement for the International Classification of Unclassified Goods and Services.
Patents: The current patent law dates from 2001, which amended and consolidated in a single text all previous legislation. In 1997, Indonesian law extended the term of patent protection to 20 years from 14 years, and maintained the provision for a two-year patent extension. The amendment allows for the patenting of plant and animals. However, some of the weaknesses of the old law persist. Chief among these flaws is the requirement that an inventor must produce a product or utilize a value-added process in Indonesia in order to obtain patent protection for the product or process. Inventions that are contrary to Indonesian laws and regulations are excluded from patent ability, and the standard for excluding inventions without domestic content appears to be inconsistent with TRIPS requirements.
Trademarks: Indonesia enacted its new trademark law on August 1, 2001. Like the new patent law, the latest version consolidated into one text a series of trademark laws enacted over the past 20 years. The new law raised the maximum fine for trademark violations to Rp 1 billion (USD 95,000) and slightly reduced the maximum possible prison term. The government justified this move by claiming that financial penalties were a greater deterrent to IPR violators than imprisonment. Foreign rights holders, arguing that most IPR cases never result in the maximum sentence, had pushed for minimum sentencing guidelines rather than higher fines.
The trademark law provides for the determination of trademark rights by priority of registration, rather than by priority of commercial use. The law also provides for the protection of well-known marks, but offers no administrative procedures or legal ground under which legitimate owners of well-known marks can cancel pre-existing registrations. Currently, the only avenue for challenging existing trademark registrations in Indonesia is through the commercial courts, which generally have issued decisions within three months upholding legitimate trademarks.