Enforcing Your IP Rights
Case study: A ground breaking win for Microsoft in Indonesia
The intellectual property team of Freehills' Indonesian correspondent office—Soemadipradja & Taher—recently acted for Microsoft to record five ground-breaking wins in a Jakarta intellectual property court.
The decisions were the first ever decisions in an Indonesian civil case for copyright infringement in computer software, as well as being the first significant award of damages in an intellectual property case in Jakarta. The case has been the subject of close attention by the international software community and, among others, the United States government.
The software giant launched a series of five test cases in Indonesia against computer hardware retailers who had engaged in hard disk loading. Hard disk loading is a practice whereby a hardware retailer loads unauthorised copies of software onto a hard disk and then includes that unlicensed software with the equipment sold to the purchaser.
Obtaining judgments in Indonesian intellectual property cases is notoriously difficult, resulting in very few cases and even fewer judgments. The problems include a lack of judges with intellectual property knowledge, an absence of any discovery process in civil litigation, and rules of procedure, which restrict a party from even seeing the evidence submitted by the other party. Despite these problems, the West Jakarta District Court ordered the defendants to pay Microsoft damages of just under US$10 million (approximately $20 million) for copyright infringement.
Microsoft's team at Soemadipradja & Taher was headed by Shaun McVicar, an intellectual property partner from Freehills' Melbourne office, who has just returned to Melbourne after a secondment in Indonesia of almost five years.
The case also saw Microsoft successfully defend a cross-claim brought by the defendants against Microsoft seeking, among other things, an order that Microsoft must sell its software in the Indonesian market for only a few US dollars each. Microsoft also successfully fought off an unprecedented challenge whereby an association of computer hardware dealers sought to join the proceedings against Microsoft as co-claimants in the cross-claim.
The intellectual property team of Freehills' Indonesian correspondent office—Soemadipradja & Taher—recently acted for Microsoft to record five ground-breaking wins in a Jakarta intellectual property court.
The decisions were the first ever decisions in an Indonesian civil case for copyright infringement in computer software, as well as being the first significant award of damages in an intellectual property case in Jakarta. The case has been the subject of close attention by the international software community and, among others, the United States government.
The software giant launched a series of five test cases in Indonesia against computer hardware retailers who had engaged in hard disk loading. Hard disk loading is a practice whereby a hardware retailer loads unauthorised copies of software onto a hard disk and then includes that unlicensed software with the equipment sold to the purchaser.
Obtaining judgments in Indonesian intellectual property cases is notoriously difficult, resulting in very few cases and even fewer judgments. The problems include a lack of judges with intellectual property knowledge, an absence of any discovery process in civil litigation, and rules of procedure, which restrict a party from even seeing the evidence submitted by the other party. Despite these problems, the West Jakarta District Court ordered the defendants to pay Microsoft damages of just under US$10 million (approximately $20 million) for copyright infringement.
Microsoft's team at Soemadipradja & Taher was headed by Shaun McVicar, an intellectual property partner from Freehills' Melbourne office, who has just returned to Melbourne after a secondment in Indonesia of almost five years.
The case also saw Microsoft successfully defend a cross-claim brought by the defendants against Microsoft seeking, among other things, an order that Microsoft must sell its software in the Indonesian market for only a few US dollars each. Microsoft also successfully fought off an unprecedented challenge whereby an association of computer hardware dealers sought to join the proceedings against Microsoft as co-claimants in the cross-claim.