在大多数国家中，只要人们不去按照相关规定缴纳专利维持费用（一般这种费用需要逐年缴纳），其就可以看成是“放弃”了自己的专利或者申请。这是因为只要在截止日期前未缴纳费用，相应的专利或者申请就会处于“已遭放弃”的状态。然而，在过去的几年里，印度尼西亚知识产权总局（DGIP）却在以一种非常独特的视角来审视这种维持费。具体来讲，就是DGIP将这种费用看成是一种需要结清的负债，而债务期限会一直延续到专利所有人主动提出放弃该专利为止。这一点非常重要，因为根据印度尼西亚的《专利法》，所有的费用自专利获得授权后就会进行累积计算。

举例来说，如果某位印度尼西亚的申请人在10年前就获得了专利权，那么印度尼西亚政府会将其在过去10年里应缴纳的维持费用看成是一笔债务，而且这笔债务必须得到偿还。而且只要申请人获得了专利权，其就不能拖欠这笔钱。换句话来讲，申请人只要在足额补交完所谓的“欠款”后才能主动放弃自己的专利，或者避免承担此后更多的费用。

此外，由于印度尼西亚规定了一个极不寻常的、长达3年之久的缴款宽限期，因此这就意味着即使申请人想通过不缴纳费用的方式直接放弃已经获得专利权的申请，其仍然会被视为拖欠印度尼西亚政府至少3年的债务。

2015年，DGIP曾试图在修订法律之前从专利所有人手中收回这些债务，但是不出意料的是，此举并没有收到太好的效果。

而现在 DGIP 已经采取了一种极端强硬的态度来处理上述问题，即不会再接收那些拖欠债务的专利所有人提交的任何新的专利申请。而且，DGIP要求所有人必须在2019年2月15日之前缴清所有的欠款。

来源于www.mondaq.com

PS：如果您恰巧在期限过后才看到这篇文章，又恰巧拖欠了年费产生了债务，您还可以通过补缴清所欠的所有年费来获得在印尼的重新申请专利的权利。

 

Indonesian Patent Office has sent letters to 7600 patent owners in Indonesia in order to recover the unpaid annual fee along with Interest as soon as possible. It has come to notice that Rp 150 Billion ($12,000,000) is unpaid which has caused huge financial loss to the government. Most of the owners presented themselves as ‘Foreign entities’ on recieving the said letters.

Article 115 (1) of Indonesian Patent Law 2001 provides that a patent shall be deemed void, incase the patent owner fails to pay patent annual fee for consecutive 3 years. Therefore, according to the said law, Thousand of Patents were abandoned by patent office due to non-payment. However, the patent owner can still clear the unpaid amount even tough patent is passively abandoned. Otherwise it will be consider as debt.

The Indonesian Directorate General of Intellectual Property Rights (DGIP) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Indonesian Anti-Counterfeiting Society (MIAP) to handle this situation.

Indonesian Directorate General of Intellectual Property (DGIP) attempted to recover the debt in 2015; unfortunately the approach failed and did not succeed.

The DGIP has now taken strong decision of not accepting any new patent filing applications from the defaulter patent owners who have not cleared the pending debt of their previously filed Patents. The Indonesian patent office is determined to settle all such debt by 15.02.2019. This surprising move by DGIP has made patent holders worry and think whether the payment of the outstanding annuities will actually have any effect for the future patent applications by them.