The objectives of this paper are to analyze and find answers on several problems as follows: firstly, to find the legal protection on intellectual property rights (IPRs) on traditional knowledge (TK) specific regulation in Indonesia; secondly, to find the concept of the governance of traditional knowledge which performs justice principle in term of supporting the economic development in Indonesia. This paper found that, first, the legal protection for TK use the regulations of IPRs, although in fact, it cannot give a total protection. The purpose of legal protection will not only avoid an unfair competition with misappropriation but also for the economic development. Second, the governance concept with TK approach will be perfectly designed by making a Sui Generis system, by creating a comparing document (prior art) as a defensive protection mean which accommodate the “benefit sharing” concept. In this concept, the custodian of TK is the community. The existing regulation of IPRs after Indonesia ratified of agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) cannot provide any justice for the protection toward TK for the existence of misappropriation.
Keywords: Intellectual property rights, Traditional knowledge, Benefit sharing, Misappropriation.