Indonesia's trademark law proves to be Kryptonite to Superman

Indonesia’s problem of trademark piracy has reared its head again. This time, DC Comics lost a recovation case against Marxing Fam Makmur‘s SUPERMAN trademark. The Supreme Court then upheld the decision. 

The problem is that this was a very old registration from 1993. Marxing Fam Makmur is connected to a large public F&B maker called Siantar Top, and they have made a SUPERMAN chocolate wafer bar for many years. DC Comics' own trademark for similar foods was rejected so they tried to cancel Marxing Fam Makmur‘s SUPERMAN trademark on the grounds of bad faith. 

Indonesia’s IP authorities usually take a narrow view of bad faith.  However the case did not get that far. Unfortunately the decision focused on procedural issues rather than the substantive case.  The suit was ruled to be vague and unclear because DC tried to combine several claims into one suit - first the trademark cancellation, then termination Marxing Fam Makmur's pending trademark applications and an order for the Co-Defendant (DGIP/IP Office) to grant registrations for Superman related marks to DC Comics.

This might not seem wrong but the latter two remedies don't exist in the law. The proper route was to cancel the registrations, deal with the pending applications separately and for DC to file its own marks which would be examined independently. DC Comics was further undone by its own Power of Attorney which was only for cancellation of Marxing’s trademark registrations but did not authorise the other claims.

Great care must be taken with litigation in Indonesia. Getting caught out on procedural issues is a common problem. Elsewhere in the world a court would just reject the bad claims; here they throw the whole case out. That is a case of judicial rigidity applying procedure over justice.