Inclusive rights to protect communal intellectual property: Indonesian perspective on its new government regulation

Abstract

This article promotes the concept of inclusive right to protect Communal Intellectual Property’s objects. Communal Intellectual Property is an issue for countries with natural and cultural wealth, including Indonesia. One of the challenges of Communal Intellectual Property is related to its non-individual holders. The purpose of this article is to put forward the concept of inclusive right that subsisted in the Communal Intellectual Property to respond to the challenge. Furthermore, inclusive right is a new concept in the Indonesian legal system to answer the problem of the general intellectual property legal system that relies on the exclusive right of individual right holders and unable to protect cultural properties and tradition-based objects those are viewed as lacking originality, inventiveness, and individual proprietors. In this regard, this article discusses the legal standing of the Indonesian government regulation that constitutes the inclusive right of the communal intellectual property and describes the consequences of its nuance. The data in this study were qualitative data. The data were obtained through literature studies, which were supported by observations in the field. The problem in this article was analyzed and solved through analytical descriptive, normative juridical, and exploratory juridical methods. The original results of the research find that the implementation of the concept of inclusive right requires procedural arrangements to utilize communal intellectual property objects with different forms of community consents.

Keywords:

• communal intellectual property
• inclusive right
• government regulation
• Indonesia

1. Introduction

Communal Intellectual Property (Communal IP) in developing countries is rich in culture, biological resources and traditional knowledge. It is the main asset that must be protected. In Indonesia, communal IP is held by a group of people who live according to their respective customary laws and protocols, thus creating new challenges for this country (Wong et al., 2010).

This article examines the forms of Communal IP those are derived from the concept of inclusive Intellectual Property (IP) rights, the meaning of inclusive IP right, the source community as the Communal IP holder, and the consequences if the Communal IP will be utilized for economic purposes, as well as procedures for utilizing the Communal IP objects that require various forms of community consents. So far, research and articles related to the Communal IP have been widely discussed but they have not focused on the implementation of inclusive rights nor various forms of community consents. So, this article will fulfil these lacks.

Actually, the classic concept of a community has been introduced by Ferdinand Tönnies in 1887 (Stråth, 2015). In addition, Christina Korsgaard has argued that communal ownership has a non-capitalistic nature (Love, 2020). Interestingly, the concept of inclusive property right has also been offered by Dusolliere (Dusolliere, 2015). In the aforementioned regards, this article tries to advance the concepts of a community from Tönnies, communal ownership from Christina Korsgaard and inclusive property right from Dusolliere for the protection of Genetic Resources (GR), Traditional Knowledge (TK), Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCEs), Indication of Sources (IS) and Geographical Indication Potentials (GIP) as the subject matters of Communal Intellectual Property (Communal IP) in the Indonesian legal context. The inclusivity of the IP right is used as the basis concept to define the source community as the holder of the Communal IP in Indonesia, as well as the possibility to insert the spirit of sharing between the members of the source community, the community, and the government, as well as the community and the outsiders, according to Pancasila or the Five Precepts of Indonesia from Soekarno.

The term Communal Intellectual Property is actually a relatively new term compared to the terms Industrial Property and Intellectual Property. Likewise, the concept of inclusive right is new. It is even a newer term and concept in the Indonesian legal system compared to Communal Intellectual Property.

The simplest meaning of a Communal Intellectual Property (Communal IP) is: it is an Intellectual Property (IP) that is held by a community instead of an individual. Rights in theCommunal IP, as opposed to exclusive rights of IP, are inclusive.

The term Industrial Property has been a legal term for hundreds of years, especially since the Paris Convention on the Protection of Industrial Property Rights 1883 came into force. Meanwhile, the term Intellectual Property (IP) has also been deliberately used since the entry into force of the Agreement of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) 1994 as one of the annexes of the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Indonesia have ratified Paris Convention and TRIPS Agreement alongside with the other specific World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)‘s international treaties regulating Intellectual Property subject matters. So, Indonesia have also legally used the terms of Industrial Property, Intellectual Property (IP), their subject matters, and their protection systems for decades.

As a relatively new term, the term Communal IP in the Indonesian legal system was first used since the enactment of the Regulation of the Minister of Justice and Human Rights Number 13 Year 2017 (MJHR 13/2017) concerning the Data of Communal IP on 14 July 2017. Then, the term inclusive right was used after the enactment of Government Regulation Number 56 of 2022 (Gov. Reg. 56/2022) on 20 December 2022. So, as terms and concepts, Communal IP and inclusive right are relatively new.

In Indonesia, the concept of inclusive right in the realm of IP was created on the advance stage of the drafting process of the Indonesian Bill of Communal IP, that was between 2020 and 2022. Given the fact that the concept had not been deeply elaborated before the bill was drafted and enacted, the theoretical basis to explain and implement the inclusive right as the right embedded in the Communal IP is important to be established.

Negotiations at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) forum do not use the term Communal Intellectual Property. Instead, they use terms genetic resources (GR), traditional knowledge (TK), and folklore or traditional cultural expressions (TCEs). Protecting GR TK TCEs as IPs are problematic. They cannot enjoy the protection provided by the established conventional IP system because their creators have already been unidentifiable, nor they still possess authenticity, newness, or novelty.

From the conventional IP system’s viewpoints, GR TK TCEs having been entering a public domain. Consequently, the uses and exploitations of economic rights on the GR TK’s derivative products and the TK TCEs’ creative developments do not consider the rights of related source community nor other non-individual custodians to enjoy the sharing of benefits resulted from the uses. This is the point where biopiracy and culture-misuse occur. Bad patents of biopiracy and cultural misappropriation of culture-misuse are regarded as unjust enrichments that ill-treat the source communities as well as the other custodians of the GR TK and TCEs. So, a special or a sui generis protection system should be established.

In the Indonesian legal context, the sui generis protection system is named as the Communal IP protection system. Considering the richness of genetic and cultural resources of Indonesian archipelago, the Indonesian government considers that establishing the solid legal basis for such protection is important at the national level, although at the international level, the binding international agreement/s that can comprehensively protect GR TK and TCEs are still in progress.

1.1. The importance of drafting regulation on the communal IP and its inclusive rights in Indonesia

Communal IP consists of several forms, including TK and TCEs. In general, it refers to “the result of the intellectual creativity of a group of indigenous peoples that has (potential) commercial value (that can be traded)” (Talaat, 2013). TK and TCEs are often associated with GR because the issues are related to how researchers find and utilize GR which have been used by indigenous communities in a close connection with their TK or TCEs without giving proper compensation to the communities. The terms GR, TK, and TCEs are also usually dealt separately to accommodate the needs of modern society to understand the characteristics of each element of the Communal IP (Zhang, 2004).

TK and TCEs are not considered as a private property because in customary law, a person’s work is regarded as the property of all members of the indigenous community. Therefore, TK and TCEs do not meet the criteria of protection by the modern or conventional IP regimes. Determining the owner or party entitled to economic and moral rights to protect Communal IP is uneasy (Janke, 2003), especially in the Indonesian context.

Without protection, Communal IP in Indonesia would be continuously used unjustly by other parties. One of which was in 1995: a cosmetic company Shiseido from Japan, filed a patent application for several products utilizing spices that had been used in Indonesia for generations, neither with consent nor benefit sharing. Based on this case, legal protection in a broad sense that includes the results of the indigenous community’s intellectual creativity is needed. Even though Communal IP does not fulfill the element of novelty, originality, or newness, its existence is a result of the intellectual endeavors of the indigenous communities. It has survived in intergenerational context for a very long time. It has also been proven beneficial for human life. So, we need to give appreciation to the creations of the indigenous communities (De Werra, 2009).

The Indonesian Minister of Justice and Human Rights’ Regulation Number 13 Year 2017 concerning Data of Communal IP (MJHR 13/2017) defines a Communal IP as an IP in the form of TK, TCEs, GR, and a Geographical Indication’s Potential (GIP). In general, Communal IP is an IP whose holder is a group of people in contrast to the conventional IP whose owner is exclusively individual. Communal IP is the result of the indigenous community’s cultural activities, which must be preserved because it also forms the communal identity (Oseitutu, 2013) and embodies the collective consciousness of the community.

MJHR 13/2017 mandates inventory activities on Communal IP objects. In this regard, several things are crucial to be observed. First, the Communal IP inventory’s primary purpose is to protect indigenous community’s rights so that there will be no use of Communal IP without permission nor the unfair distribution of benefits anymore. Second, it is necessary to obtain information regarding the needs of interested parties to utilize a Communal IP, both commercially and non-commercially. Third, it is necessary to ensure that data regarding Communal IP, which has been inventoried and digitalized, cannot be accessed arbitrarily. Fourth, the related indigenous communities should be advised and aware that if their Communal IP is documented for inventory needs, the conventional or modern IP will appear (Kutty & Valsala, 2002).

MJHR 13/2017 also substantiates that the Indonesian government should be able to determine whether the data collection in inventory activities is sufficient to fulfill the moral and economic rights of the source community. In this respect, a form of protection to fulfill the moral and economic rights of the Communal IP holders is needed.

This article examines the form of protection for Communal IP derived from the concept of IP inclusive rights, the holders of Communal IP, and the consequences of its economic use according to the Government Regulation Number 56 Year 2022 about Communal IP (Gov.Reg. 56/2022) as the most recent regulation as well as the refinement of MJHR 13/2007.

The development of theoretical perspective for Communal IP and its inclusive right are intertwined with the process of drafting the Indonesian Bill of Government Regulation on Communal IP, which had been intended to strengthen the legal standing of the Communal IP data in the MJHR 13/2017 into a higher legal form. When the draft came into effect as Gov.Reg. 56/2022 on 20 December 2022, the concepts in the regulation still triggered many questions. In this context, this article tries to answer the question about the theoretical concept of the nature of Communal IP in Indonesia, especially its inclusive rights.

The problem that will be raised and answered in this article is: how will the concept of inclusive rights subsisted in the concept of Communal IP be best explained and used to fulfil the economic rights resulted from the utilization of the Communal IP that is held by the source community?

2. Methods

This article is presented qualitatively with descriptive analysis specification. The concept of the inclusive right of Communal IP is qualitatively discussed and explored, followed by the legal means to implement the protection of Communal IP based on the most recent laws and regulations in Indonesia.

All data were qualitative. The data was obtained through literature studies, which were supported by observations in the field.

The research methods to analyse the data were analytical descriptive, normative juridical, and exploratory juridical methods. These legal methods were supported by the empirical juridical method, by observing various legal practices in Indonesia. The results of the observations were then tested against the applicable laws and regulations, and used as the bases to explore the potential applicable practices to obtain various community consents when the utilization of different Communal IP objects was in prospect.

3. Communal intellectual property as a future IP regime

3.1. Community, communal ownership, and communal right

A community can be defined as a group of people who live in the same area, whether it is in the same territory, place, or locality, including a city, a village, or a neighbourhood (Britannica Dictionary Definition of Community, 2023). Members of a community are bound by a particular geographical origin.

The classic concept of a community was introduced by Ferdinand Tönnies in 1887. According to Tönnies (Stråth, 2015), a community consists of mutual actions between active versus passive, giving versus receiving, preserving versus destructing, and positive versus negative relationships between its members as their expressions and forces, are real and organic. The real and organic relationships are essential, characterizing the social cohesion as the community or“gemeinschaft” (Mazya et al., 2023), as opposed to the society or “gesselschaft” (Mtika & Kistler, 2017). A gemeinschaft is an organic functioning, indelible, and long lasting social unity, whereas a gesselschaft is a mechanical functioning, superficial and temporary organization (Valsiner, 2007).

Charles John Smith explains that community (Latin: communis) is a section of society. Whilst a society (Latin: socius) can be as wide, general, and abstract as a human race, a community is constituted by common interests or nature, with its particular sense. According to Smith, “community is a society having reciprocal rights, privileges and interests” (Smith, 1871).

In short, a community has several characteristics. Firstly, it is bound by a certain geographical origin. Secondly, it is an organic, deeply rooted, and lasting social unity (gemeinschaft as opposed to gesselschaft). Thirdly, its members share reciprocal rights, privileges, and common interests.

Communal ownership can be interpreted as the exclusive right of a group of people or communities to use and enjoy a particular object. In this context, it is difficult to imagine the way that such communities should establish the allocation of the use or enjoyment of objects belonging to them by each member of that community. If the system of allocation of use and connoisseurship has been delegated to another party of an individual nature, a company or a government, then such communal ownership will naturally lose its communal character, so the relationship of ownership with the object cannot be called communal anymore.

In the formulation of the British Dictionary, Ownership of property probably means at a minimum that one’s government or society will help to exclude others from the use or enjoyment of one’s possession without one’s consent, which may be withheld except at a price. (Smith, 1871) Ownership of a minimal wealth can be interpreted as government or community assistance to a person to get the other party expelled from the use or enjoyment of the object without the permission of the person who is the owner of the object, who may withhold the object until a certain price is paid to him. In short, ownership is exclusive.

Christina Korsgaard argues that communal ownership is a non-capitalistic one. Korsgaard took the public library system as a model. In public libraries, books are stored in a system and a certain period of time. The right of library members, which is an exclusive right to solely use books for reading, for a limited period of time, can still be categorized as a form of wealth. By the same logic, communal ownership is also held together, with objects that can at any time switch to use for a certain period of time, commonly known as lending (Love, 2020).

Communal right in the Indonesian IP discourse has a different nature from the individual right. Communal right is not an exclusive individual property right on an entire object that allows the proprietor to sell, remove, or even destroy the object at will. Instead, elders of a community whose authority allows them to act upon a Communal IP object is limited by their responsibility to sustain the object for next generations because usually, the object is an inheritance from their ancestors. So, it is not a right of full ownership. Rather, it is more like a right of stewardship or custodianship.

In the abovementioned regard, the communal right of IP is more appropriate to be regarded as firstly, the exclusive right to use, and not to possess, held by the elders on behalf of the community and/or the community as a whole. Secondly, it also contains the limited right to use for the individual member of the community insofar the individual is authorized by the customary laws and protocols of the community. And thirdly, it is also an inclusive right of the outsider/s to be involved in holding the right for the best cultural development possible, as long as the community allows it.

Ir. Soekarno also said that the core of the Indonesian state ideology Pancasila is mutual cooperation or gotong-royong. Pancasila, according to Soekarno’s viewpoints, consists of five interrelated precepts: believing in god, humanity, unity, democracy, and justice. In line with the First Precept, Communal IP is a manifestation of rituals or customs based on the source community’s religious perspective or spirituality. The Second Precept states about a just and civilized humanity. In this regard, all cultural endeavours are actually humanitarian activities that contain mutual respect and tolerance. The Third Precept is the unity of Indonesia. Accordingly, the use of Communal IP should not divide, but rather, should facilitate the unity of the cultural diversity of Indonesia. The Fourth Precept is the implementation of democratic principles, which show that the Indonesian people provide opportunities for deliberation in determining a decision. The Fifth Precept of Pancasila, about social justice for all Indonesian people, requires fairness mutual justice to be conducted for Communal IP holders as well as the users.

The Five Precepts of Pancasila can be squeezed into Three Precepts. Those are socio-nationalism, socio-democracy, and divinity (Dimyati et al., 2021). Furthermore, the Three Precepts can be unified, becoming mutual cooperation or gotong-royong. The interdependence of every single member of the Indonesian society in mutual cooperation or gotong-royong implies that they are all bound as one or a communal self, namely the Indonesian people.

The fifth precept of Pancasila emphasizes the importance of developing good deeds in a familial manner, based on the principle of mutual cooperation or gotong-royong. This precept also expresses the necessity to realize a fair attitude, including by maintaining a balance between rights and obligations (Palar et al., 2021).

3.2. Communal IP

Art. 1.1 of the Indonesian Government Regulation Number 56 Year 2022 about Communal IP (Gov.Reg. 56/2022) defines Communal IP as an IP whose ownership is communal, has economic value, and upholds moral, social, and cultural values.

According to art. 4 of Gov.Reg. 56/2022, Communal IP consists of traditional cultural expression (TCE), traditional knowledge (TK), genetic resources (GR), indication of source (IS), and geographical indications’ potentials (GIP):

• TCE is any form of creative work, whether tangible or intangible or a combination of the two, that indicates the existence of a traditional culture that is held by a community and transmitted across generations (Art. 1.2). Examples: traditional dances, traditional music, traditional puppet show (wayang), traditional handicrafts, traditional ceremonies, rituals, etc.

• TK is the whole idea in a society, which contains local values as a result of the interaction between the members of the society with their environment, being developed continuously, and passed on to the next generation (Art.1.3). Examples: traditional medicines, traditional immune boosters, traditional technic to build sacred houses, etc.

• GR is a genetic material derived from plant, animal, or microorganism-containing units that functions as carriers of hereditary traits and has a real or potential value (Art.1.4). Examples: Rafflesia Arnoldii plants, Sumba and Sumbawa horses, Komodo dragons, etc.

• IS is a sign indicating the true geographical origin of a good and/or service and is used in trade that does not necessarily have a direct connection with natural factors (Art.1.5). Examples: Bogor pickles, Gudeg Jogja traditional cuisine, Sumedang tofu, etc.

• GIP is a good and/or product that is due to its geographical environmental factor/s, including natural factor, human factor, or a combination of the two factors, having a certain reputation, and the potential to be protected as a registered geographical indication (art.1.6). Examples: Andaliman Lumbanjulu spices, Lumuik stones of Dareh river, Kota Batu fortress, etc.

The position of Communal IP is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. The position of Communal IP in the system of non-individual IP

Table 1 depicts the position of Communal IP as a branch of non-individual IP system in Indonesia. It is 1 (one) of the 3 (three) branches of non-individual IP or community-based IP; the other branches are registered geographical indications (GI) and local plant variety (Local PV) held by traditional farmers. Communal IP has 5 (five) subject matters: traditional cultural expressions (TCEs), traditional knowledge (TK), genetic resources (GR), indication of sources (IS) and geographical indication potentials (GIP).

The reason for placing Communal IP system between the Geographical Indication (GI) system and the Local Variety (LV) protection system in Table 1 is because the three of them are held by community instead of individuals. However, they have different legal bases as well as formalities to obtain protections. GI requires registration, whereas Communal IP and LV do not. The requirement of Communal IP to obtain the defensive protection is to upload the object in the official database of Communal IP, whilst LV—differently from the new Plant Variety (PV) that requires registration–, only need acknowledgement from the government. These differences make GI, Communal IP, and LV are regarded as different protection sub-systems of the non-individual or community-based IP. In this regard, according to the different legal bases of the three, it is important to differentiate the protection of registered GI on one hand and the protection of Geographical Indication Potentials (GIP) on the other hand. In the Indonesian legal system, only GIP is literally regarded as a part of Communal IP according to Gov.Reg. 56/2022 as well as MJHR 13/2017. GI is regulated as a part of Trademarks and Geographical Indications Law 20/2016.

Prior to the endorsement of the Law about the Development of Culture 5/2017, the Indonesian Ministry of Justice and Human Rights had amended the old Copyright Law, the Patent Law, and the Trademark Law to include the sui generis inserting provisions relating to the protection of GR, TK and TCEs.

The sui generis provisions are: firstly, articles 38 and 40 (1) e, j, o, and q of the Copyrights Law 28/2014 regulate TCEs, including traditional puppets (pewayangan), batik arts, the protection of translation, adaptation, arrangement, transformation, and modification of TCEs, as well as the protection of the compilation of them in a form of original work. Secondly, article 26 of Patent Law 13/2016 regulates special provisions for innovation that are based in GR or TK. Thirdly, in Trademarks and Geographical Indications Law 20/1016, articles 1.6, 1.7, 53, 54, 56, 66, and 101 regulate Geographical Indications (GI) and IS that can be used to protect end products of GR and TCEs as well as to preserve TK of producing GI products in the GI document of description.

The aforementioned amendments are important additions following the existing Plant Variety Law Number 29 Year 2000 (PV Law 29/2000) that has included a sui generis article 7 about the acknowledgment of LV. Local Varieties do not fulfill the requirements of a new Variety of Plant that is able to be registered by the law. However, the law acknowledges their existence and so impliedly, LV can be treated by specific legal means, that is the protection for plant GR. In addition, it also infers that the law acknowledges the right of traditional farmers as a communal holder the LV.

3.3. Inclusive right: legal standing and legal theory

IP in the exclusive right perspective, is fully individual interest. Individual means the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members (Jayasekara & Fredriksson, 2021). Different from exclusive right, inclusive right gives more benefits to communities.

The term inclusive right used in this paper is the advancement of the concept of inclusive property right offered by Dusolliere (Dusolliere, 2015). There are two characteristics according to Dusolliere’s concept of an “inclusive” property right (Mendis, 2022): (1) a legal right to a good that is held by a plurality of persons which is characterized by the collective enjoyment of the utilities of that good; (2) an absence of power or privilege on the part of any person to exclude an owner of the inclusive property right from benefitting from the utilities of the good. The community should determine whether an intangible property becomes inclusive.

In this article, a different version of Dusolliere’s argument, inclusive rights can dynamically allow community members outside the community to take hold, as long as they have good faith, without obtaining permission from all supporting communities.

About the importance of the protection of inventions, Shershenevich G. F. notes as follows (Malikovna, 2015): “the exclusive situation created in favor of the inventor by the right provided to it puts it in especially advantageous position in comparison with other producers.”

A dialectical approach can be used to clarify the relation between the conventional intellectual property (conventional IP) and the public right (public domain). Table 2 shows the application of the dialectical approach to signify the Communal IP existence.

Table 2. Dialectical approach for Communal IP

In the Table 2 above, the thesis is the conventional IP, that generally covers the individual exclusive subject matters, including: copyrights, patents, trademarks (except collective marks), industrial designs, integrated circuit lay outs, trade secrets, and new plant variety. The antithesis is the public rights or the rights in the public domain, whose holders are only the entire public. The synthesis is the Communal IP.

In practice, IP rights according to the proprietors of the holders have more variations than merely individual exclusive rights on one side and public rights or public domain on the other side. In between the individual exclusive rights and the public domain, community stewardships and individual rights combined with benefit sharing with communities also exist. Table 3 shows the in-between variation of rights.

Table 3. In-between variation of IP rights

In Table 3, the in-between variation of IP rights with an inclusive character can take forms of: firstly, community stewardship or custodianship; and secondly, individual right of which a part of the benefit of the individual right is also shared with the relevant community.

3.4. Theoretical assumptions of the inclusive right on intellectual property

In theory, inclusive right is a synthesis between exclusive right versus public right in IP. The purpose of substantiating the inclusive right on IP is to provide the Communal IP holder with a specific right other than the conventional ones. As members of the Communal IP, they have their own dynamic interaction inside the community. In this regard, the existence of the inclusive right should assist, mediate and build the best cohesion of the community members. The right should also be able to include the left member, the later appeared member or a potential member who needs or is/are needed, to join the community in accordance with the community’s internal law and protocol.

As a theoretical construction in IP, inclusive right has several assumptions and exception. The assumptions and exception are explained below.

3.4.1. First assumption

Communal IP is IP that is held by a community, so the community should be regarded as a unity: as an individual that consists of a group of people who have and inherit common genealogical, historical, and cultural relations. In this regard, like the individual that consists of a single person, the community also has its own property, including cultural and intellectual properties, which are held based on the right that is inclusive.

3.4.2. Second assumption

there is a collective consciousness and a communal soul that embraces all members of a community of a Communal IP from generation to generation, that surmount individual selves. In this regard, the inclusivity of the right is important because it enables every single member of the community as well as the community themselves, to include outsider/s to be part of the community, as long as the outsider/s can prove his/her/their goodwill, respect, and innate connection with the community. Such connection exists dynamically and enriches the collective consciousness and the communal soul of the community as a member passes away or rejoins the community.

3.4.3. Third assumption

in practice, inclusive right can be exercised side by side with the exclusive right, especially the exclusive right to use, in so far, the subject matters of IP related to both rights are all held by a community. Likewise, an inclusive right of IP can be exercised as and additional right that is associated with the exclusive right of IP that is held by an individual person, so far that the exclusive right entails the IP subject matter of the inclusive right as its main source.

3.4.4. Fourth assumption

Inclusive rights that subsist in each subject matter of Communal IP are varied. Regarding the IP subject matters, inclusive right is most appropriate to be the right of Collective IP, especially TCEs and IS, because their stelsel or protection is declaratory, without any registration formality.

Rights subsist in TK, especially TK associated with GR (TK-GR), because they are shared within the beneficiary, can also be regarded as inclusive right. However, if a TK or a GR has been used as the basis of a patented new invention, the right of the patent holder remains the exclusive proprietary of right, that entails the right of the community, if it is the case, to enjoy a benefit sharing, which then later to be distributed within the members of the community inclusively.

Exception is the rights if GIP. The GIP can be an inclusive right, but then it becomes an exclusive right to use once the GIP has met all the requirements to be registered as a GI. Benefit sharing is the term used to divide, to deliver or distribute the economic benefit of the Communal IP, as opposed to the royalty system in an individual IP. The form of benefit sharing is far more flexible than the royalty system because it could be in the form of financial or non-financial benefit, depending on the best interest decided by the community members.

IP inclusive right is dynamic and perpetual. It remains once the right is declared or re-declared by paper based as well as digital means, but if it is transformed into an exclusive right by registration, the inclusive right ends. The limit of conventional intellectual property (IP) in international as well as national laws is due to its unavailability to protect moral and economic values of historical and traditional objects. In countries where many historical and traditional objects are potential to be used as tools to enhance the society’s welfare, this limitation has caused many forms of sui generis protection associated with historical and traditional objects are endeavoured by many countries in their national levels, including Indonesia.

4. Indonesian government regulation on communal IP

On 20 December 2022, the Indonesian Government successfully endorsed the Government Regulation Number 56 Year 2022 (Gov.Reg. 56/2022) about Communal IP. In principle, Gov.Reg. 56/2022 protect TCEs, TK, GR, IS and GIP those are held by source communities and mostly consist of historical and traditional objects. This government regulation is a mandate from Copyright Law Number 28/2014. Although only mandated by the law for TCEs, its impact extends to GR, TK, GIP, and IS.

Unlike other Indonesian government regulations those are commonly drafted and endorsed mainly because of the legal obligation in their upper law/s, the endorsement of Gov.Reg. 56/2022 was also motivated by the need to regulate the protection of Communal IP in a higher form of regulation, rather than only in the form of Minister Regulation; in this case, the Minister of Justice and Human Rights’ Regulation Number 13 Year 2017 about the Data of Communal IP (MJHR 13/2017).

In the Indonesian layer of laws and regulations, Government Regulation is a higher form of implementing regulation than a Minister Regulation. Government Regulation is positioned exactly under a law and endorsed by the President, whereas a Minister Regulation is positioned under a Government Regulation and endorsed by one Minster (Ministers are the assistants of the President). So, the endorsement of Gov.Reg. 56/2022 in Indonesia can be regarded as one of the milestones in a national level concerning Communal IP, following the endorsement of the MJHR 13/2017 about Data of Communal IP. Gov.Reg. 56/2022 is a transformation of MJHR 13/2017 into a stronger form of law. This transformation does not repeal the MJHR but providing the MJHR with a more solid and comprehensive legal basis.

In the drafting process, there was also a question whether it was appropriate to accommodate a new thing in a government regulation, whereas as a legal form, a government regulation was supposed to be precisely in line with the content of its upper law. In this regard, the directorate of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights specialized in legal drafting ascertained that accommodating a new concept in a government regulation albeit it had not yet clearly mentioned in its upper law was possible, as long as the concept was an implementable concept and intended to clarify the legal means of the upper law.

Gov.Reg. 56/2022 states that the protection provided by this regulation is a defensive protection mechanism through official databases. The scope of protection of the regulation is also extended to cover TK, TCEs, GR, IS and GIP. The important point to note regarding Gov.Reg. 56/2022 is that this regulation accommodates several new concepts used as the bases of Communal IP, especially the communality of the Communal IP holders and the inclusivity of the Communal IP rights.

Gov.Reg. 56/2022 actually aims to unify various provisions regarding the inventory implementation. Previously, MJHR 13/2017 about the Data of Communal IP has profound implications on the Indonesian patent protection system. As has been previously described, Article 26 of Law Number 13 Year 2016 about Patent recognizes invention that is sourced from GR or TK. The GR or TK-based invention shall disclose the origin of the GR and TK in question. So, MJHR 13/2017 ascertains that the disclosure is conducted alongside with the digitalization and the uploading of the GR and TK data in the official Communal IP Database that is provided by the Directorate General of IP of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights of the Republic of Indonesia.

Recently, Communal IP inventory is carried out through the Gov.Reg. 56/2022 by recording the Communal IP objects and integrating them into the official database. Various levels of the Indonesian government, from the level of Ministers and heads of Non-Ministerial Government Institutions to Regional Governments, hold the authority to guard and maintain the Communal IP side by side with the source communities. As such, the specificity of Gov.Reg. 56/2022 is to implement the steps of utilising the Communal IP in the Indonesian Communal IP information system. In addition, funding is also regulated, to be carried out for the inventory and maintenance of the Communal IP. In short, the Gov.Reg. 56/2022 is not intended to limit the potential utilizations of the objects of Communal IP. On the contrary, this regulation facilitates any possible usages, even the commercial exploitations of the Communal IP, so long as the proper inclusions of the source communities, including the benefit sharing arrangements, have been conducted.

5. Discussing the inclusive rights and the nuance of its consequences

As new concepts, Communal IP and its inclusive rights have been widely questioned. Some substantial questions and the arguments answering the questions are further discussed below.

There is a question about whether the international law as well as the Indonesian law and regulations have been adequate enough to accommodate the interests of the community and the government regarding the inclusive rights. The simplest answer to this question is negative: no or not yet. That’s why the inclusive right is regulated in the new Gov.Reg. 56/2022 about Communal IP and that’s also why this article is composed: to promote the inclusive right on Communal IP as a solution for some outstanding issues related to it.

IP law at the international and Indonesian national levels have not yet provided a comprehensive theoretical formulation to answer important questions, such as: how to protect the possible economic benefits of the utilization of genetic and traditional cultural resources? What kind of community can be the right holder? How the economic benefits can be distributed fairly and equally if the rights holder is a community? What if there is a conflict between two or more communities who eligible to hold the same or similar Communal IP? And how the economic benefit should be distributed between communities and individual/s if an object of the Communal IP held by a community is further developed in a form of derivative product or a creative work by individual/s? If responding to these questions is influenced by the perspective of IP exclusive right, the answers would be difficult and unsatisfactory. So, the perspective of IP exclusive right, specifically for Communal IP, should be dismantled. The construction of the IP right that is inclusive should be able to provide better answers. Further discussions below argue the advantages of the inclusive right to provide the aforementioned questions with answers.

First question: how to protect the possible economic benefits of the utilization of genetic and traditional cultural resources?

The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity (Ayu et al., 2014) as a supplementary agreement to the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (UN CBD) that came into force on 12 October 2014 actually regulates access and benefit sharing on the utilization of Genetic Resources (GR) and Traditional Knowledge associated with Genetic Resources (TK-GR).

Indonesia has ratified the Nagoya Protocol. The Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry has also endorsed regulations to implement the contents of the Protocol. However, the scope of these law and regulations is only limited to GR, TK-GR and—by the endorsement of the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry Regulation Number P34 Year 2017 about the Local Wisdom on the Protection and Management of the Environment—Traditional Cultural Expressions associated with Genetic Resources (TCE-GR). Strategic GR, GR in water, TK as well as TCEs those are not directly associated with GR nor the protection and management of the environment, are not yet included.

The endorsement of Law Number 5 Year 2017 about the Development of Culture answers the problem, by constituting that general TK (not only TK-GR) is one of the objects of cultural development under the jurisdiction of this Law. Furthermore, as has been detailed on the legend of the aforementioned Table 1, the Indonesian Ministry of Justice and Human Rights had amended the old Copyright Law, Patent Law, and Trademark Law to include the sui generis inserting provisions relating to the protection of GR, TK and TCEs.

Unfortunately, none of the abovementioned laws and regulations clearly mention about inclusive right. So, the justification of why the economic benefit from the derivative products and creative works should be shared to the communities remains debatable. Exclusive right justifies that the economic benefit can be held in the exclusion of others who are not inventing nor creating the product/work. However, exclusive right cannot explain why the economic benefit should be shared to the community who are not directly inventing nor creating the new/original aspect of the product/work.

On the contrary, inclusive right can. Actually, the root of the communality is sharing. Being the same members of a community means that the members are bound to share their benefits as they united as one community. In this regard, sharing is also the notion of the inclusive Communal IP right when it is attached to an individual IP. For example, a patented invention that is based on a traditional knowledge; in this case, the benefit from the patented product should be able to be shared and include the source community to benefitting together with the individual inventor, because, even though the community members are not the inventors of the patented aspect of the product, they contribute on the viability of the TK as the main source of the product.

Second question: what kind of community can be the right holder of a Communal IP?

This has been a question in the international as well as national forums regarding GR, TK and TCEs for decades. Whilst a source community can include both a community with a modern-legal entity or not, further differentiations still should be made. In other international legal instruments outside the conventional IP, a community can refer to indigenous people, indigenous and local communities, tribal and indigenous people, ethnic minorities, and/or custodians. World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) uses the term beneficiaries to gather all communities possible in the negotiations concerning IP and GR, TK, TCEs. In the Indonesian legal system, there are legal terms: indigenous or adat law community, indigenous or adat community, traditional society, custodian, and even remote community and alienated tribe.

In light with the use of term beneficiaries in WIPO to gather all communalities possible, Indonesia uses the term source community as the communal holder of the Communal IP, in which the inclusive right subsists. According to article 1.7. of Gov.Reg. 56/2022, a source community means, “ … an adat or indigenous law community and/or a local community that produces, protects, maintains, and/or develop the Communal IP communally and across generations, including supporting societies/communities.” In this regard, the important point to note in the meaning of a source community is that the source community include supporting society/ies or supporting community/ies. These support groups can actually be the outsiders, whether they are a person or a group of people, so long as they show their good faith to support the protection and development of the Communal IP. Implicitly, this is the legal means to depict that the right of the Communal IP is inclusive.

Third question: how can the economic benefits be distributed fairly and equally if the rights holder is a community?

As the spirits of inclusive right of the Communal IP is inclusiveness and sharing, the law and regulation should provide a safe space of the community to share the benefits amongst their members according to the fairness and equality values in their customary laws and protocols. Otherwise, government can mediate the distribution according to the best interest of the community members. Benefit sharing that is based on the spirit of inclusiveness and sharing will surely be more amicably implementable than otherwise.

Fourth question: what if there is a conflict between two or more communities who are eligible to hold the same or similar Communal IP?

If it were from the exclusive right viewpoint, a legal dispute between communities would be the answer. However, from the inclusive right viewpoint, the two communities will be advised to become a joint holder of the Communal IP, because the inclusive right allows a community to include the other community as a co-holder.

Fifth question: how should the economic benefit be distributed between a community and an individual if an object of the Communal IP held by the community is further developed in the form of a derivative product or a creative work by the individual?

As has been discussed above, the individual inventor or creator will still be eligible to hold a patent, a copyright, or an industrial design’s right on his/her invention, creative work, or design. However, if the invention, creative work or design is based on TK or TCEs, he/she should share some benefits with the source community. The sharing is not limited to sharing certain amount of money based on a licensing agreement but can also take various forms of monetary or non-monetary benefit sharing, depends on contract or the actual needs of the community members.

Another critical question regarding the inclusive right of the Communal IP is: does the inventory, documentation, digitization of data of the Communal IP contribute not only to the protection of morals but also to the economic rights of the people, how can this contribution be seen?

In the definition of the right of the Communal IP in the Gov.Reg. 56/2022, it is clearly said that the natures of the right of Communal IP is inclusive, and it is a moral right with economic value. In this regard, data of Communal IP is a tool of a defensive protection mechanism against illegal or abusive commercial usages. It means that if there would be a misuse of missappropriation regarding a Communal IP object, the official data will provide the source community as well as the Indonesian government a legal standing to take a legal action. If the wrongdoer is a foreigner or residing overseas, the Indonesian legal system specifically concerning digital data allows an extraterritorial jurisdiction to be in force. It means that if the harm of the wrongdoing from overseas is suffered by Indonesian in the Indonesian territorial jurisdiction, a legal action based on Indonesian legal system can prevail.

Furthermore, questions about the benefits to adopt the concept of inclusive rights in the Indonesian Intellectual Property legal system are answered by the following arguments:

Firstly, inclusive rights in Communal IP management will motivate the Indonesian government, including the provincial and regency or city governments to actively include the source community/es who hold the Communal IP in their jurisdiction to work together in the protecting and enhancing the Communal IP.

Secondly, the holders of the Communal IP certainly can be in the form of communal holders, whether they are with or without a modern legal entity. In this regard, the holders can also be a joint holder of two or more communities, and in certain extent, may also be the state.

Thirdly, inclusive right allows a source community to include outsiders to become the holders too, in so far that the outsider/s can show or prove their/his/her good faith.

The following passages further explain the legal bases and rationales of each aforementioned arguments.

5.1. Co-partnership between government and source community

Article 3 Paragraph (1) & (2) of Gov.Reg. 56/2022 stipulates that the responsibility of the stewardship or custodianship of Communal IP is held by the State. In this regard, the state is responsible for conducting inventory, safeguarding, and maintenance of the objects of the Communal IP. However, Art 5 of Gov.Reg. 56/2022 also unequivocally states that the right of Communal IP “ … is an inclusive moral right, that is held and exercised by the source community, having economic values, and valid indefinitely.” So, besides being held by the State, the Communal IP is also held by the source community. This contradictory position of the Communal IP right holders can be mediated by the legal concept underlying the existence of the right of Communal IP, that is the inclusive right. Because the right is inclusive, the inclusion of the government by the source community as well as the inclusion of the source community by the government, is meant to be.

The right of Communal IP is regarded as a part of “traditional rights” mentioned in art 18B of the Indonesian 1945 Constitution. The article is about the recognition and respect of the State for indigenous communities and their “traditional rights”. In addition, the right of Communal IP is also related to art 28I of the Constitution, which stipulates that “the right of traditional people” is human rights. So, referring to art 28I (4) of the Constitution, the State, especially the Government, is responsible for protecting, promoting, enforcing, and fulfilling the right of Communal IP as a part of human rights. That is, the presence of the State is obligatory.

5.2. The holders

Inclusive right is clearly stipulated in Gov.Reg. 56/2022. Article 5 (1), (2) and (2) mention that Communal IP is “a moral right with inclusive character …” or “an inclusive moral right … ”that have an economic benefit”. So, one of the main characteristics of Communal IP, besides it is a moral right that has an economic benefit, is that the Communal IP is an inclusive right. By this, the nature of the Communal IP is completely different from the nature of the exclusive right of Conventional IP such as the copyright, patent, trademark, or even registered geographical indication.

In accordance with the spirit of arts 18B and 28I (3) of the Indonesian 1945 Constitution, art 5 of Gov.Reg. 56/2022 also reaffirms that the right of Communal IP is originated and remained being held by the source community. The presence of the State in art 3 of Gov.Reg. 56/2022 in this respect is to be a facilitator of the source community as the native holders of the Communal IP. Furthermore, the presence of the State is also significant to regulate, mediate and maintain the Communal IPs those are of the cross-community, cross-regional or even cross-country character.

Because the right that is held by the State as well as the source community is not an exclusive but inclusive one, it is not difficult to mediate the seemingly contradictory position of the holders, those are the Government and the source community, by gather them together as a co-partner in holding the rights.

Communal ownership character means being the common property of the people who are included in the recorded Geographical Indications (GI) area. After registering a product that has the potential for GI and obtaining legal protection through GI, the community has the exclusive right to distribute and trade the product so that the people of other regions are prohibited from using it on their products. Based on the objective analysis described above, these are the elements that will give rise to the reputation, quality, and characteristics of the product which are marked with GI (Wulandari et al., 2023).

5.3. Inclusion of outsider with good faith

Considering the abovementioned proposition that there is a distinctive collective consciousness that surmounts individual selves in each source community, the inclusive right of IP enables the community to include an outsider to become a member of the community in accordance with the community’s customary law and protocol. The outsider can be a person that had used to be a member of a community but then gradually separated from the community because of marriage, pursuing higher education, or simply moving out to attain a better life, or other personal causes, as long as it is not against the customary law and protocol. However, the outsider can also be an activist, an artist, or a scientist who has a good faith to conserve, maintain and develop the Communal IP of the source community. The outsider can come from Indonesia or outside Indonesia.

As mentioned in Article 5 of Gov.Reg. 56 of 2022, Communal IP is an inclusive moral right that is held and/or carried by the source community and has “economic benefits”. The existence of these economic benefits indicates that the use of Communal IP can provide economic benefits for the source community as well as for supporting communities, or even, in the context of strategic Communal IP, for all Indonesian people.

These economic benefits of Communal IP also have various consequences. One of the crucial consequences is the issue of utilization permits, especially if the utilization will lead to the protection of conventional IPR that prioritizes economic value. In this regard, Table 4 illustrates the possible utilization models that can be used according to the variations of Communal IP subject matters.

Table 4. Variations of the community consent in the utilization of a Communal IP

Communal IP Subject Matters	Forms of Community Consent	Legal Bases
Traditional Cultural Expressions	Written consent, Verbal consent, and/or Silent consent	Copyrights Law Law about the Development of Culture Government Regulation on Communal IP
Traditional Knowledge	Written consent, Verbal consent, and/or Silent consent	Patent Law Law about the Development of Culture Government Regulation on Communal IP
Genetic Resources	Prior Informed Consent (written) and Mutually Agreed Term (written)	Patent Law Law on the Ratification of Nagoya Protocol Government Regulation on Communal IP
Traditional Knowledge related to Genetic Resources	Prior Informed Consent (written) and Mutually Agreed Term (written)	Patent Law Law on the Ratification of Nagoya Protocol Government Regulation on Communal IP
Traditional Cultural Expressions related to Genetic Resources	Prior Informed Consent (written) and Mutually Agreed Term (written)	Copyright Law Communal IP Government Regulation Regulation of the Minister of Environment and Forestry No. P34/2017
Geographical Indication’s Potential	Written consent, Verbal consent, and/or Silent consent	Government Regulation on Communal IP
Indication of Source	Written consent, Verbal consent, and/or Silent consent	Trademark and GI Law Government Regulation on Communal IP

Table 4 shows the variations of consent when the utilization of a Communal IP is in prospect, in the Indonesian legal context. In principle, formal prior informed consents, including mutually agreed terms, are required for GR and TK. Differently, regarding TCEs, GIP and IS, the consents can be more flexible and taking a form of explicit or implicit consent.

There are many examples, especially in TCEs, it is analyzed that Indonesian traditional arts have been learned by outsiders from other countries and then being preserved and developed in the country of origins of the outsiders, i.e.: traditional Javanese Srimpi Dance by Japanese artists or gamelan traditional music by American artists. In this regard, the inclusive right embedded in the Srimpi Dance and gamelan traditional music, with oral or silent consent from the source community members, allows the Japanese and American artists to be regarded as parts of the supporting societies of the arts as well as the communities.

In the case of a TCE that is endangered, the conservation programs conducted by cultural institutions or cultural activists outside the community play an important role in sustaining and revitalizing the TCE. So, based on the inclusive character of the right of the TCE, the cultural institution and activist that have shown their good faith in supporting the existence of the TCE can also be regarded as parts of the supporting society that also hold the TCE.

The spirit of the new concept promoted Gov.Reg. 56/2022 is not to prohibit other parties from using the Communal IP but to emphasise that inclusive rights apply in the protection of Communal IP. The difference in giving consents in Table 4 depends on the type of Communal IP. Each Communal IP has certain peculiarities and goals that cannot be generalized. GR and TK are loaded with written permission because their usage will be more in the forms of patents-related inventions. Differently, in TCEs, the spirit to protect TCEs is to promote culture so that the usages by parties outside the source community cannot be directly categorised as violations if it is not considered a harmful act by the source community leaders. Thus, silent consent in TCEs, TK, GIP, and Indications of Source (IS) is more possible to apply.

6. Concluding remarks and possibilities for future research

This article aims to show the legal standing of this latest government regulation and describes the consequences of its nuance by describing the Indonesian philosophy on the power of community, and the legitimation of Communal IP that occurs in Gotong Royong (togetherness) principle in Indonesia.

This article shows that the conventional IP system does not provide space for the protection of cultural property and Communal IP derived from cultural heritage and traditions held by the community. Substantial problems with the inability of the conventional IP system to provide optimal protection of such community-based wealth are the absence of authenticity or novelty, the absence of legal recognition of values other than individual moral value and economic value, and the absence of a strong legal basis to accommodate non-individual rights holders, other than Collective Marks, Geographical Indications (GI), and Indications of Source (IS). Through the theory of IP’s inclusive right, it is shown that most of Indonesia’s cultural and traditional wealth is actually held by communities, indigenous communities, traditional communities, and local communities. Not only in Indonesia, but in Nigeria, for example, after a series of meetings, the working group came up with the first draft bill aimed at reviewing the current copyright law to make it more inclusive, relevant, and up-to-date regarding current trends (Edosomwan, 2019).

The important thing about the existence of government regulations regarding Communal IP is to emphasize the importance of implementing a dynamic re-declaratory system of protection. The defensive protection of Communal IP through the inscription or uploading of the data of a Communal IP in an integrated and centralized database system, as regulated in Article 13 of Gov.Reg. 56/2022, can be called by a special term. It is not a constitutive system such as patents or trademarks of which the registration is a requirement for the existence of the rights. Nor is it a declaratory system like Copyrights, of which registration is not compulsory for the existence of the rights. In the context of Communal IP, registration is not the case. Rights have already existed in the Communal IP objects along with the activities of the source communities in preserving, maintaining, reforming, and developing the objects. The system implemented for this defensive protection is a system of re-declaration through an official database.

In the context of legal drafting, new perspectives resulting from the notion of inclusive right of the Communal IP should be observed on drafting a contract. Particularly, if the contract is about the prior informed consent and the mutually agreed terms regarding the benefit sharing from the utilization of GR or TK-GR, the use of the inclusive right is mandatory. Likewise, although a written contract is voluntary in the utilization of TCEs, IS and GIP, but the inclusive right should always be regarded, as sharing is likely to be more rapid and dynamic in the utilization of TCEs, IS and GIP.

There is an inherent dynamic when members of a source community maintain and develop a Communal IP internally. In this context, data uploading, data verification, data integration, and official attestation of the data should be carried out in a dynamic context. Even after the Communal IP data is officially available to the public, it can still be changed. Changes may be conducted with regard to variations of an object or membership of the source community, provided that the changes are made through certain procedures with a burden of proof to be carried out by the subject/s who propose/s the changes.

As a follow-up study of this article, it is expected to determine how to alter competition into cooperation. In the case that there is more than one source community eligible to hold a Communal IP, the inclusivity of the Communal IP allows the source communities to work together as a joint right holder rather than competing to be a holder of the Communal IP by defeating the others. Inclusive rights of Communal IP can be used as a solution to respond to many concerns about the possibility of conflict between communities over a Communal IP with a cross-communal, cross-region, or transborder character.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Faculty of Law, Universitas Padjadjaran and the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights of the Republic of Indonesia for providing the authors with permission to conduct independent research and to obtain source materials related to Communal Intellectual Property in Indonesia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Miranda Risang Ayu Palar

Miranda Risang Ayu Palar was born in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. She obtained her Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) and Master of Law (LL.M.) at the Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney (ADS Aus-AID) majoring in Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights. She is specialized in Geographical Indications, Communal Intellectual Property, and Cultural Property Rights. She graduated (S.H.) from the Faculty of Law, Universitas Padjadjaran. She has been teaching since 1998 at Universitas Padjadjaran and was invited to be a visiting lecturer/examiner in Australia (UTS), Japan (JIII/JIPII), Singapore (SMU), Thailand (Kasetsart Uni) and India (KLA). She is currently the head of Intellectual Property Center on Regulation and Application Studies, Faculty of Law, Universitas Padjadjaran Bandung, Indonesia.

Laina Rafianti

Laina was born in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. She holds a Doctoral degree (Dr.) in the Law of Intellectual Property and Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCEs), a Master of Law degree (M.H.) in International Law, and graduated from the Law Faculty (S.H.), Universitas Padjadjaran. Laina Rafianti has been a lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Law, Universitas Padjadjaran since 2005. She is affiliated in the IP Centre on Regulation and Application Studies and a Manager on Research and Innovation at the Faculty of Law, Universitas Padjadjaran. Most recently, Laina also serves her expertise for the West Java Cultural and Tourism Office to prepare inscriptions of National Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Helitha Novianty Muchtar

Helitha Novianty Muchtar was born in Indramayu, West Java. She obtained her Doctor in Law (Dr.), Master of Law (M.H.), and graduated (S.H.) from the Faculty of Law, Universitas Padjadjaran. Helitha is a lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Law, Padjadjaran University, especially in Intellectual Property Law, Transnational Business Law and International Private Law. Apart from teaching, she is also the manager of the Center for Managing and Developing Intellectual Property at Universitas Padjadjaran. She is very interested in Intellectual Property Law, especially Intellectual Property’s valuation and innovation.