On 2 November 2020, the Indonesian President officially passed the Omnibus Law on Job Creation through Law No 11 of 2020. Rouse published the summary of changes to the IP Laws here.
Within a short time of 3 months, the Indonesian government has issued 45 Ministerial Regulations and 4 Presidential Regulations to implement the changes in the Job Creation Law. In relation to IP Laws, the Ministry of Law and Human Rights has issued 3 Regulations - Ministerial Regulation No 12, 13, and 14 of 2021, all mirroring the amendments in the Job Creation Law. The Regulations came into effect on 3 February 2021.
For patent owners, the inclusion of importation or licensing as satisfying the use requirement within 3 years of the grant is a slight improvement from the previous absolute requirement to manufacture or use the process in Indonesia. One outstanding question was the status of any postponement request filed earlier.
While the Regulations have deleted the provisions relating to the postponement request for the implementation of patents, they provide that any pending applications for postponement that were filed and were still pending as of 2 February 2021, will still be processed.
Interestingly, despite the impact of Covid-19, the total number of patent applications filed in Indonesia in 2020 increased[1] slightly from 10,389 in 2019 to 10,469 in 2020.
In the greater investment context, the business community also welcomed Presidential Regulation No 10 of 2021 on Investment Business Activities that was passed to replace a “Negative Investment List" with a new “Positive List”. This long-awaited Presidential Regulation paves the way for more areas for investment to be open to all and the level of restrictions for foreign ownership in some areas has also been reduced.
Hopefully, the speed of the reforms will encourage IP owners invested/looking to invest in Indonesia.
For more information, please contact us at jakarta@rouse.com
