In Indonesia, third-parties may file a request for post-grant opposition before a Patent Appeal Commission. The Commission is not part of the Patent Office but is an independent commission under the Ministry of Law.
The request for post-grant opposition should be filed within nine months from patent grant. Detailed reasons and evidence for opposition should accompany the request. The Commission will either reject the request, partially grant the request (e.g. direct that a claim be cancelled) or fully grant the request (i.e. revoke the patent).
Based on available data, three post-grant opposition requests were filed in 2019 and four were filed in 2020. The main advantage of requesting for post-grant opposition instead of directly commencing revocation proceedings before the Commercial Court is that the post-grant opposition process is typically cheaper than Court proceedings. Moreover, the Commission typically includes technical experts and senior patent examiners who may be better placed to understand the technology of the patent compared to Court judges. However, third-parties may find the window of nine months to file a request for post-grant opposition relatively short, and therefore we recommend implementing a patent watch to monitor grant of potentially relevant patents.
