Trademark and Copyright Registration Assistance to Strengthen Legal Protection for Culinary MSMEs

Culinary micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) possess economic and creative assets that require legal protection through intellectual property rights, particularly trademarks and copyrights. This community engagement program aims to strengthen MSME actors' legal literacy and practical capacity in identifying, preparing, and registering intellectual property through the Directorate General of Intellectual Property's online system. The activity employed a participatory legal assistance approach involving initial surveys, in-depth interviews, questionnaires, legal education, focus group discussions, document preparation, technical assistance, and post-activity evaluation. The results indicate that MSME actors generally understand the importance of business identity but have limited understanding of the legal distinction between trademark protection and copyright protection. Practical difficulties were also identified in determining protectable intellectual property objects, preparing administrative documents, selecting trademark classes, and navigating the online registration process. Direct assistance helps bridge the gap between normative legal protection and the practical capacity of MSME actors to access intellectual property services. The program therefore demonstrates that practice-based and continuous legal assistance is more effective for strengthening MSME intellectual property protection than information-based socialization alone.