Geographical indication protection for non-agricultural products in Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia has a diverse culture and biodiversity held by indigenous and local communities. Accordingly, this country has a special interest in a system of protection based on Geographical Indication (GI) because of the communal nature of GIs. Today, Indonesia has implemented the mandate to protect GIs provided by the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) through Indonesian Law Number 20 Year 2016 about Trademarks and Geographical Indications (TM & GIs Law 2016), which regulates the protection of national and oversea GIs in the country. In the aforementioned context, this article explores the current protection granted to non-agricultural products as GIs and compares this protection to that awarded to agricultural products, which are more commonly registered as GIs. This article starts with an analysis of the classification system of GI products in the Indonesian legal practice, which regulated the registration of non-agricultural products prior to the enactment of the Minister of Justice and Human Rights Regulation (MJHR) 2019, and was at the basis of the registration of the following GI products: furniture, foods based on husbandry and fishery, and traditional fabrics. Several non-agricultural products were in the process of being considered for a GI application when the enforcement of the MJHR 2019 took place. However, the enactment of the MJHR 2019 made protecting non-agricultural products under the Indonesian system more complicated than it used to be under the previous regime, all this attracting complaints from the applicants. This article addresses the disharmony of the new legal system.

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