Limitation for Non - Traditional Trademark Protection in Indonesia: Certainty Over Progressivity?

Indonesia issued Law Number 20 / 2016 on Trademark and Geographical Indication. This new law also introduces several significant changes that refine current practices; one of the most important amendments is the broadening scope of the trademark category including three-dimensional form, sound marks, and hologram marks, known as Non - Traditional Trademark. This provides broader progressivity in the term scope of protection although the requirement of visually perceptible for trademark remains to stand as a limitation in the name of legal certainty. This paper used juridical normative method, aims to examine the new scope protection of trademark according to Indonesia's new trademark law and how it impacts to the implementation of trademark protection in Indonesia compared to some countries that also applied the protection of Non - Traditional Trademark. The result shows that the requirement "graphically visible requirement" in Indonesia New Trademark Law provides certainty in its implementation of legal protection although its limiting the scope of trademark protection comparing to other jurisdictions where many countries perceived Non Traditional Trademark as a progressive effort to comply with global trade tendencies for in recent years the industries keep registering more and more trademarks in an unconventional area like a hologram, three - dimensional trademark, sounds, scents and even taste and this potentially result in the limitation of protection for Indonesia's product in the global market.