Intellectual Property Rights Potential among Small and Medium Enterprises in Malang District

Small and Medium sized enterprises (MSMEs) are playing an important role in Indonesia's economic growth. The purpose of this research is to discover the potential of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) among SMEs in Malang district, East Java. A survey was conducted among 31 SMEs in the district of Malang district. This was supported by data from Department of Industry and Trade and Regional Development Implementing Agency. Observation, in-depth interviews, review of documents and purposive sampling techniques were employed and findings showed the MSMEs predominate in the handicraft (45.16%) and processed food (41.94%) sectors which have a potential for IPR, especially in regard to trademarks (58.06%), copyright (35.48%) and industrial design (6.45%). Only 11.11% of the trademarks had been registered, while the copyright and industrial design have not been registered yet. The main markets of the SMEs were Malang Raya region (51.61%), inter-city (38.71%), inter-island market (6.45%) and international market (3.23%). IPR issues occur to 3.23% of respondents, especially in regard to design plagiarism.