The government is promoting copyright awareness among small and medium enterprises in an effort to be removed from the US Trade Representative (USTR)'s Priority Watch List, a minister says.
"We are working to improve our performance in eradicating intellectual property rights *IPR* infractions," Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu said Thursday after the signing of an agreement on copyrights between the Directorate General of IPRs at the Justice and Human Rights Ministry and the National Agency for Export Development (BPEN) within the Trade Ministry.
She said the government would report its progress on the eradication of copyright infringements to the US in October. "*The US* needs to see our progress in combating copyright infringement.
We have, for example, strengthened law enforcement against those violations," she said, accompanied by BPEN chairman Hesti Indah Kresnarini.
BPEN and the Directorate General of IPRs agreed to better facilitate small and medium enterprises in acquiring patent rights for their brands and designs.
"We need to better educate on the importance of copyrights," Mari said.
In a report this year, the US said it saw no changes in the adherence to IPRs from the previous year.
The USTR said Indonesia had no adequate protection and law enforcement against widespread copyright infringement, placing the country on a priority watch list with 10 other countries, including China, India, Thailand and the Philippines.
The US said that it had interests in protecting the IPRs of its citizens overseas due to the fact that about 18 million Americans worked in industries strongly dependent on the enforcement of IPRs.
No sanctions have been issued by the US authority for those countries. However, Indonesia suffers from a negative image by being categorized as a country lacking legal safeguards to combat copyright infringement.
Since 1989, Indonesia has not made it off USTR watch lists, moving between its Priority Watch List and Watch List.
Mari said the government was committed to fighting copyright infringement to get the country removed from the Priority Watch List.
"We should be optimistic that we can get out of the list," she said.
Director General of IPRs Andi Noorsaman Sommeng said that by 2015, the government expected a 15 percent growth in the number of Indonesian brands and designs obtaining copyrights from a total of 63,000 patented domestic and overseas products registered by the ministry.
He said that of the 63,000 products, 93 percent were foreign products manufactured by, among others, Japan, the US, Germany and other developed countries, with the rest produced locally.
"A 15 percent increase by 2015 is quite realistic," he said, adding that the National Education Ministry and Research and Technology Ministry had intensified IPR centers within their institutions.
"We should strengthen copyright awareness among our innovators as a way to get off the US list," he said, adding that Indonesia was closer to the less urgent Watch List.
Mari said that the increased number of Indonesia innovators seeking copyrights for their brands and designs showed a growing awareness in a creative economy. "Our ideas and innovations must be protected," she said.
The government, she said, would better facilitate and assist small and medium enterprises in their efforts to get copyrights for their brands and designs due to their lack of experience and knowledge about it.
Source : thejakartapost.com