COLLECTIVE MOVEMENT OF IPR AWARENESS
On Friday, April 26 2013, the international community celeberate the 13th intellectual property rights day. In this context, this warning is often used as a momentum by the international community and countries in the world to further strengthen the importance of IPR in encouraging the progress of human civilization. Currently, the theme carried by WIPO in commemoration of the 13th World Intellectual Property Rights Day is “Innovation for the Next Generation”, while the theme raised by the Directorate General of Intellectual Property Rights is “Continuous Innovation for National Glory”.
For the Indonesia, IPR should become a collective awareness in order to improve the welfare of the people. To achieve this, the IPR movement really must be able to involve all components of the nation’s children. The IPR movement should not only be partial, sporadic, and carried out by a handful of groups without a clear direction, but should be a comprehensive, systemic movement, and involve the widest participation of the community by focusing on a goal,which is building Indonesian society welfare through IPR.
Notes on Awareness of IPR
The Indonesian nation has always been perceived as a society that has not optimally possessed IPR awareness. This perception is actually more due to several reasons. There are at least two reasons that strengthen this, consist of; First, there are still rampant IPR violations committed by the Indonesian society. For example, in the case of music and song violations, according to Member of the Board of Management of the Indonesian Recording Industry Association, Jusak Irwan Sutiono, there are illegal sales of Indonesian song downloads amounting to more than 6 million songs. For example, 1 song costs Rp. 3,000, so the potential loss for Indonesia aka the music industry per day is Rp. 18 billion/day.; Second, the low number of IPR applications submitted by the Indonesian people, especially in terms of filing patent applications. According to data from the Directorate General of Intellectual Property Rights, overseas PCT patents amounted to 4839, Domestic PCT patents amounted to 8 in 2011.
In other side of the perception that the awareness of IPR in Indonesia is not optimal, this is also inseparable from the weakness of the IPR management system both at the center and in the regions. Indications of the weakness of the IPR management system can be seen when IPR is currently considered a matter for the Ministry of Law and Human Rights of the Republic of Indonesia if it is in the Central Government, while IPR becomes a matter for the Department of Industry and Trade if it is in the Regional Government.
In conclusion, it is possible that the issue of IPR awareness in Indonesia is actually a serious matter. It happened because of the low understanding of IPR of the Indonesian society, is not only experienced by people who incidentally are IPR actors, such as creators, designers, inventors and so on, but also experienced by government officials both at the Central and Regional levels, which incidentally is the government apparatus. It is hoped that it can build awareness of IPR in the Indonesian people even better.
Collective Movement of IPR Awareness
Based on the reality of IPR awareness among Indonesian society, it is clear that the Indonesian society in terms of building IPR awareness are still being carried out partially, sporadically, not focused and the parties involved are still very few. Partial nature of IPR awareness. As a result, the IPR conscious movement has only become a routine and only belongs to a handful of certain community groups. In addition, the development of the IPR system both at the center and in the regions is developing slowly and tends not to be responsive to the needs of the community itself.
Realizing this issue, the momentum of the 13th World Intellectual Property Rights Day on 26 April 2013 should be used by the Indonesian society as a starting point for moving awareness of collective intellectual property rights. By building a collective IPR conscious movement, of course, IPR that has been developed and implemented in Indonesia can ultimately have an impact on efforts to realize the welfare of the Indonesian people themselves. This, of course, is also in line with the purpose of IPR as stated in Article 7 of the TRIPS Agreement that IPR is basically developed and applied to improve the welfare of the community.
Wallahu’alam bis Shawab.
Prof. Dr. Budi Agus Riswandi, S.H., M.Hum.
Director of Intellectual Property Rights Center
Faculty of Law UII Yogyakarta
