Singapore Intellectual Property Blog

As you may be aware, a number of amendments to the Singapore Patents Act have been passed by Parliament.

These changes, together with amendments to the Patents Rules, will come into force on 14 February 2014.

Following our representations, IPOS has confirmed the new format for application numbers of registrable IP  (e.g., trade marks, patents, registered designs) filed on or after 14 February 2014.

The new application number format will not use alphabetic identifiers, but rather numeric identifiers.

This is the first time that IPOS has released details of the algorithm they use to calculate the check digit. They did so on our representations that the widespread availability of the algorithm is in the public interest.

I am very pleased to announce that we have released a new Rubygem called “patentscope”. A Rubygem, also known as a gem, is a code library written in the Ruby language.

The Patentscope gem allows easy access to data from the WIPO PATENTSCOPE Web Service using Ruby. As provided by WIPO, the PATENTSCOPE Web Service is available through a SOAP interface. The documentation provided by WIPO uses Java.

This article in the Business Times (via Singapore Law Watch) has an innocuous headline (“Mobile clinic inventors to drop suit against Mindef”), but contains what can only be described as a bombshell:

Dr Ting, chief executive officer of HealthStats International and a board member of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore ((IPOS), filed the suit [against] Mindef.

Update February 2014: The Plant Varieties Protection (Amendment) Bill contains a provision to extend protection to varieties in all plant genera and species.

The Plant Varieties Protection Act (Chapter 232A) allows for certificates to be obtained for protecting plant varieties in Singapore.

Section 4(1) of the Act makes clear that the Act only applies to the plant genera and species listed in the Schedule. In other words, any plant variety that is not listed in the schedule is not protectable as a plant variety in Singapore.