The Firm
What we do, stated plainly
We represent clients in disputes over intangible assets — trademarks above all — and over the commercial relationships built on them. The work runs from portfolio risk assessment through Commercial Court proceedings to cassation before the Supreme Court.
Indonesia operates a first-to-file trademark system that does not recognise prior use abroad. For a foreign brand owner this produces a specific and recurring problem: a mark built over decades in other markets can be held here by someone who filed first and has never sold a thing under it. Unwinding that requires choosing the right instrument at the outset, because the Commercial Court applies its procedural rules strictly and a defect cannot be cured once a claim is filed.
Most of our work begins at that choice.
How the practice is organised
We are a focused practice rather than a full-service firm, and we say so because it matters to how a matter is staffed. Work is handled by a partner of the firm with research support, not passed down a chain. A client who instructs us speaks to the person who will argue the case.
Where a matter requires capability outside our practice areas — tax litigation, criminal procedure, foreign law — we say so and work alongside counsel who holds it, rather than taking the file and learning on the client’s time.
Constitutional Practice
Why a disputes firm argues constitutional cases
In July 2024 the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia decided Case No. 144/PUU-XXI/2023, which altered Article 74 of the Trademark Law. We acted as counsel in that matter.
That matter did not arrive from a constitutional practice. It arrived from trademark litigation. A provision that forfeited registered rights after three years of non-use, applied through an evidentiary standard that effectively measured marketing expenditure, produced outcomes that the statute’s own preamble — which commits the law to the protection of micro, small and medium enterprises — could not account for.
The ordinary route is to argue the point case by case and lose some of them. The constitutional route is to test the provision itself. Both are available under Article 24C of the 1945 Constitution. We took the second because the first was not reaching the problem.
What this means for a client
Firms that only litigate under a rule read it as fixed. Having argued for a provision to be read differently, we approach a matter asking which arguments a court can actually be moved by — and where a rule is genuinely settled, we say that plainly rather than selling a theory.
How We Work
Four commitments
The route is chosen before the claim
Non-use and bad faith are different doors with different clocks. Picking the wrong one costs years and hands the other side a cheap defence. We settle that question, with the evidence in front of us, before anything is filed.
Evidence before argument
Indonesian courts decide trademark matters on what can be proved, not on what is asserted. We assess the evidentiary position first and tell clients where it is weak, including when that means advising against proceeding.
Primary sources, always
Every position we take is traced to a decision, a statute or an official publication, cited so the client can check it.
No claims we cannot evidence
We do not publish win rates, client names without consent, or rankings we have not earned. What appears on this site is what we can show you the document for.
Beyond Practice
Research and teaching
The firm is affiliated with the Elsa Syarif Research Centre, and the firm prepares PKPA materials on intellectual property procedural law for advocate training.
This is not decoration on a profile. Teaching procedure forces precision about how a rule is actually applied rather than how it is summarised.