Review of the Judges' Consideration of Trademark Conflict Between PS Glow and MS Glow

Abstract

This article is motivated by differences in the decision of the judge at the Medan Commercial Court and the decision of the Surabaya Commercial Court regarding the trademark dispute between MS Glow and PS Glow. MS Glow considers that the PS Glow brand is similar to MS Glow, which was first present in the skincare world. That is why MS Glow sued PS Glow at the Medan Commercial Court. As a result, the Medan Commercial Court granted MS Glow's lawsuit and cancelled the PS Glow brand in the name of Putra Siregar as a defendant. Then, unsatisfied with the decision, PS Glow submitted the same case to the Surabaya Commercial Court. The results of the Surabaya Commercial Court's decision stated that MS Glow was essentially the same as PS Glow. From the case above, there are 2 (two) different court decisions resulting from the same issue, namely the Medan Commercial Court, which stated that MS Glow won over PS Glow and the Surabaya Commercial Court, which stated the opposite. Even though the legal basis used is the same, namely Law number 20 of 2016 concerning Trademarks and Geographical Indications, the problem that will be analyzed in this research is how the judge considered the two cases and whether the two decisions were by the principle of bis in idem. This research uses normative legal research with a case approach and an approach to statutory regulations and court decisions. This research results in the two decisions using regulations regarding geographical indications and trademarks. The weakness of this law is that there needs to be an explanation of the similarity criteria. There are no definite parameters to assess whether a trademark is similar to other previously registered trademarks. Then, the Surabaya Commercial Court's decision does not fulfil 1 (one) requirement for a case to occur in civil law or is not by the principle of ne bis in idem.