Hague Systems on Industrial Designs Protection as an Optimization of IMT-GT ASEAN Economic Cooperation

In the industrial design rights protection regime of IMT-GT ASEAN member countries, there are two instruments as a framework, namely TRIPS and the Hague System. The Hague system is needed to elaborate on the different mechanisms in simplifying the unified design registration process, which simultaneously applies in several member countries. Still, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand have not yet completed ratifying the Hague System into national law and have not revised the legal regulations regarding industrial design in their countries, respectively. In Indonesia, there are still differences in the protection concept between what is regulated in TRIPS and the substance of the Industrial Design Law regarding first to use or first to file, and it still requires domestic registration. This normative legal research concludes the need for harmonization between the rules in treaties as a source of international law and national law, so that the clauses in trade cooperation contracts do not conflict with the laws of the respective countries that have ratified them. Unification through the Hague system also needs to be supported by expanding the scope of provinces implementing the IMT-GT cooperation project, followed by the strategic policies of each country.