In Circular No. 1/2026 (Registry of Patents) and Circular No. 02/2026 (Registry of Trade Marks), both dated 4 January 2026, IPOS announced that, with effect from 4 January 2026, it has suspended the acceptance of new acceleration requests under the SG Patents Fast and SG Trade Marks Fast programmes until further notice.

IPOS also states that requests received before 4 January 2026 that meet the qualifying requirements will continue to be processed under the accelerated timelines.

The circulars do not set out the reasons for the suspension beyond stating that IPOS is reviewing the programmes. Given that the programmes were launched only on 20 May 2025 and are less than 8 months old, IPOS may be taking the opportunity to refine the schemes based on its experience with requests filed so far. It may be that applicants have been discouraged by the high official fees for the programmes and have not signed up in the numbers expected. On the other hand, it could be that the programmes are so wildly popular with applicants that the office has been overwhelmed by requests. At present, IPOS has not published statistics on the number of requests filed, so it is not possible to draw firm conclusions.

We will keep an eye out for further guidance from IPOS and will post an update as soon as more information is published, including any changes to eligibility, fees and expected timelines once the review concludes.

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