The Indonesian IP Office – Directorate General of Intellectual Property (DGIP) – has recently adjusted the flow to pay official fees for IPR registration. The change has been effectuated since May 3, 2023, for new patent and industrial design application, as well as patent annual maintenance, while new trademark application and trademark renewal followed later on May 12.
The new flow replaced the previous one that had been applicable since 2018, where IPR applicants needed to go first to a special website that housed the system for online payments of IPR’s PNBP (abbreviated as SIMPAKI) to create a billing code related to the respective type of IPR application sought by the applicant. After the applicant made the required payment through preferred bank and method, the paid billing code could be used to open the electronic form of the respective IPR e-filing system to input the application data and get through with the submission. Under this flow, it was not possible for the applicant to input the application data without making payment to the billing code beforehand. On the other hand, the old flow was often utilized by users – especially those who are IPR consultants, not the applicant directly – to amass paid billing codes to be kept for future use.
Within the new flow, the SIMPAKI payment system has been more integrated with the actual IPR e-filing system itself. Applicants now may have full access to the e-filing form to input all the data along with the required documentations, and to request for billing code afterwards prior to official submission. With the new flow, however, the billing code is valid for twenty-four hours only. If the billing code is not paid within twenty-four hours from the issuance, the applicant may need to request for a new billing code.
Grace period to use billing codes created under the old system is however granted until June 30, 2023, by the latest.
Under Indonesian internal government revenue system, official fees related to intellectual property rights protection services are categorized as Penerimaan Negara Bukan Pajak (PNBP) – or Non-Tax State Revenue. As with other sources of PNBP, the IPR’s PNBP goes directly to the Ministry of Finance, who are responsible for the administration, budgeting, and distribution of all state’s revenues. The DGIP however at certain degree is allowed to appropriate portions of IPR’s PNBP for its own operational purpose.
Electronic filing system for IPR protection in Indonesia itself has been in existence for several years, particularly since enactment of the current Copyright Law in 2014 as well as Laws on Patent and Trademark, both in 2016. The current e-filing system has been in place since 2018, while manual over-the-counter filing for any kind of IPR applications has been terminated since January 2020, followed by issuance of electronic only IPR certificates around the same year.