Singapore outlines IP amendments bill
A Singapore minister has revealed a new IP amendment bill that hopes to streamline the country’s IP registration, renewal and opposition process.
Singapore’s second minister for law, Minister Edwin Tong, said that the amendments aim to improve “business friendliness”, “enhance operational efficiency”, and “provide legislative and procedural clarity”.
Clauses of the country’s Patents Act, Trade Marks Act, Registered Designs Act, Plant Varieties Protection Act and Geographical Indications Act 2014 are all subject to the amendments.
The bill follows the launch of Singapore IP Strategy 2030, a ten-year national plan to strengthen the country’s position as a “global hub” for intangible assets (IA) and IP, as well as facilitate growth in technological innovation and jobs.
“As our businesses generate more IA and IP, the IP registration operations of our IP office become increasingly important,” said Tong.
If the bill is passed, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) intends to implement the amendments by May 2022.
‘Business friendliness’
To improve the IPOS’s business friendliness, the bill outlines four key changes to improve the experience of registering IP.
First, IPOS will drop a required fee to translate international applications into English.
Second, the office will allow “partial acceptance” for national trademark applications, a practice that is commonplace in many other major jurisdictions. Under this approach, marks can be registered for goods and services in which the examiner has no objections, rather than “holding up” the entire application if a dispute arises over some of the goods and services listed.
Under the current rules, applications would be treated as withdrawn if certain deadlines were missed with a six month period to request reinstation. The third change will allow applicants to request for the process to continue two months after the deadline, similar to the systems seen in the US and New Zealand.
The final change to business friendliness looks to introduce an opposition mechanism for corrections in IP applications and registrations. This will see the IPOS publish requests for corrections so third parties can assess whether they oppose the amendments.
Plant varieties
The office looks to improve the current patent examination process. This will be achieved by allowing “minor applications” to patent applications that do not meet eligibility criteria.
A new mode of examination for applications for the protection of new plant varieties will also be introduced. The IPOS will take on the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants method of examination, which allows examiners to rely on relevant tests conducted and submitted by the breeder rather than appoint external experts.
‘Procedural clarity’
Finally, the IPOS looks to further clarify certain statutes of IP law to streamline the prosecution process.
The public will be able to access the Patents Open Dossier, which was first launched in 2017, without a formal request having to be submitted.
Sequence listings will now need to be submitted alongside patent applications where applicable in order for the Registrar to issue practice directions outlining the format in which both patent applications and sequences are to be filed.
This, Tong said, “will strengthen the completeness of patent disclosures and make patent searches easier”.
IPOS will also amend clauses to provide better clarity on the period that an expired trademark will be considered as an “earlier trademark”, extending the period past a year as renewal processes could take more than a year to a more general period of “as long as they remain eligible for renewal or restoration”.
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