Singapore: The upcoming Intellectual Property centre of Asia

4th July, 2017 - 1:59 pm Categories: Intellectual Property News & Updates 0 Comments

Today, the growth of global economy has become impossible without considering Intellectual Property.

In Asia, Singapore is witnessing a huge growth of its Intellectual Property segment and is slowly becoming the focus of Intellectual Property in Asia. Singapore is ranked fourth in the world and top in Asia for having the best IP protection in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2016-2017. Adding on to this, the government of Singapore has also come up with an IP Hub Master Plan [1] to develop the country as a worldwide IP hub. The Singapore government has taken few more steps such as launching an IP financial scheme and coming up with a Center of Excellence for IP valuation [2] to accelerate the growth of IP sector in the country.

Several data analytics experts have conducted various studies for visualizing the impact of the steps taken by the Government of Singapore. Few results from the case studies will provide an intellectual and a clear picture of how Singapore is progressing towards maintaining its top position as far as Asian IP sector is concerned. The results will also show that which entities (for example. Firms, local companies, global companies) are the major contributors in this progress.

Major contributors in Singapore IP

• Almost 50% of patents filed in Singapore are invented in United States.
• Almost 13% of the filed Patents in Singapore are invented in Japan [3].
• Almost 95% of total patents filed in Singapore are filed by companies which are not originated in Singapore.

Thus more than 60% of filed patents in Singapore are invented in United States and Japan combined. The statistics in itself shows that global companies are very much interested in getting their IP protected in Singapore. This is possible mainly due to the steps taken by Singapore Government [1][2]. In addition to these steps the Government also provides monetary help for Research & Development and for filing patents to Singapore originated companies [4].Most patented technology areas in Singapore? [6]

Singapore: Granted Patents & Registered Trademarks

Data Analytics companies analyzed the trend of patents published at the patent office of Singapore to find out the number of applications granted. The analysis was done using the patent kind codes to consider various stages of patent applications. It was concluded that:

• From the year 1999, the average number of granted patents by local and global entities at the Singapore patent office per year is more than 5,000. The rate of growth has been consistent over the past decades [5].
• More than 21000 Trademark Applications have been filed in 2014, out of which around 19000 applications have been registered. [7]

About the Author :Shilpi Saxena, Patent Associate at Khurana & Khurana, Advocates and IP Attorneys. Can be reached at abhijeet@khuranaandkhurana.com

References:

[1] Lee, Shaun. “IP Hub Master Plan: To Develop Singapore as a Global IP Hub in Asia.” Singapore International Arbitration Blog. N.p., 03 Apr. 2013. Web.

[2] “IP Financing Scheme Launched.” Spruson & Ferguson. N.p., 10 Aug. 2014. Web.

[3] GreyB. “The Race of Singapore to Become The Next IP Hub of Asia.” GreyB. GreyB, 10 Apr. 2017. Web.

[4] “Funding and Assistance.” Funding and Assistance. IPOS, 21 Sept. 2016. Web.

[5] “PTMT Products and Services Brochure.” Patent Statistics, PTMT Brochure. N.p., n.d. Web.

[6] SOURCE-WIPO STATISTICS DATABASE; LAST UPDATED 05/2017