"Since 2014 to May 2017, we have facilitated 2,550 SMEs in garment, batiks, jewelry and accessories, handicrafts, bags and shoes, songket, and woven fabric to get their copyrights," Cooperative, Small and Medium Enterprises Minister Anak Agung Gede Ngurah (AAGN) Puspayoga said here on Tuesday.
Puspayoga stated that SMEs that could claim copyrights are those who produce arts and creativity in fine arts, paintings, sculpture, art of motives, voice recording, and music composing.
According to the minister, products standardization and certification is one effort to increase added value and competitiveness of SMEs products in both international as well as domestic markets.
"Copyrights and brand rights are forms of product certification as part of the intellectual property rights (HKI). This will become a precious asset for SMEs in their creation and innovation process," he remarked.
Therefore, the government has offered protection on intellectual property, especially for commercial products, he added.
"Dateline for copyrights registration, which previously was set three months at the latest, was changed to 11 days at the latest. It could also be registered online and finished in a day if the necessary documents are already completed," he stated.
Among the products that have strategic competitiveness and would be prioritized to obtain HKI are garments and batiks, jewelry and accessories, handicraft, furniture, bags and shoes, songket. and woven clothes.
Those that are prioritized to get the brand rights are those who already have potential market.
"Thus, SMEs products would be protected because they have their own brands," he revealed.
Puspayoga added that law no 20/2008 on SME has stipulated that in a bid to increase promotion of SMEs products, the government would need to facilitate SMEs to obtain intellectual property rights.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
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