Civil Court damages awards in Indonesia

An infringement case has reached trial in the Central Jakarta Commercial Court and the panel of judges ordered the Defendants to pay 2.5 billion rupiah (USD190,000) in compensation. The case concerned the trademark NAKAMICHI registered in class 24 for textiles by Andy Najarudin.

 

He found out about infringement of his mark on August 2013 through customer complaints. The defendants comprised a series of infringers involved in the manufacturing, trading and distributing of products bearing the Plaintiff's trade mark: Harry Sucipto, Janwar T. Sucipto, PT Sipatek Putri Lestari, Dhanny S. Suwaji (owner of a business called CV Pansurya), dan Handoko (owner of a shop called Toko Moro Seneng).

Despite what appears to be a large damages award by Indonesian court standards, the Plaintiff's lawyer complained to the media that the award was far below his client's actual losses. A separate criminal case had been filed and one of the Defendants had been sentenced to 3 months imprisonment.

Whether the Plaintiff will get paid is unclear. But this is a strong deterrent message. Too few infringement cases reach the civil courts so this damages claim is a good example.