Singapore has become a major hub for IP-driven companies due to its suitable environment that it provides for the companies. Companies always look for a destination that has multiple benefits and has a strong business environment. Singapore always fits in this domain and major industries and business seeks to establish their foot in Singapore capturing the market in the Asia-Pacific. Each business knows the importance of IP and the value that IP holds as an asset to the company. In this pursuit, trademark forms an important part of the company's IP asset and is considered the top priority for the company. Trademark represents the brand value for the company which holds a lot of importance. The need for its registration remains at the top priority. We will discuss the Trademark registration process in this piece.

Getting your TM ready

As we all know, that for the effective registration of a TM it is necessary to have a mark that is strong enough to protect the brand of your company and distinguish it in the market. So as has been in almost all the countries, the TM must have all the characteristic which will help for smooth registration of the trademark. They must

• be capable of being represented graphically
• be capable of distinguishing your goods or services from others
• be distinctive
• not be descriptive of the goods or services, or customary in the current language or established practices of the trade
• not be confusingly similar to an existing trademark on the register

In Singapore, these marks cannot be registered owing to their generic nature.

• Descriptive marks (e.g. super, best, cheap, one dozen)
• Marks that are not distinctive or are common to your trade
  (ones that have become well accepted concerning your trade and do not distinguish the goods or service you are offering)
• Marks that could offend or promote immoral behavior
• Deceptive marks
  (ones that could misrepresent the nature, quality, or geographical origin of the goods or services)
• Marks that are identical to earlier marks
• Marks that could confuse, as there is a similar or identical mark filed earlier concerning similar or identical goods and/or services
• Marks that are identical or similar to well-known marks

Registration Process

Generally, business and multinational corporations have their TM registered at various countries. For this, it is highly advisable that the TM must be registered at the earliest to not face any objection. If the TM has already been registered in another country, that country been a member of the Paris Convention, the priority claim can be filed in the Singapore within first 6 months. In this case, the applicant will have priority over other applications filed after your priority date.

Before going to the filing process, the applicant should search the previously filed TM from the TM search service from the official website of the Singapore Intellectual Property Office. Any similar mark will increase the possibility of objection.  With this search comes another important domain of classification. This classification must be done in compliance with the Nice Classification. You are encouraged to use IPOS classification database to search for the appropriate descriptions to avoid facing an objection against your trademark application. Further, a class that contains entirely of descriptions from IPOS classification database will enjoy the lowest application fee of S$240 per class if the application is filed online via IP2SG.

For filing the application fees, the applicant must know the fees for filing. S$240 per class of goods/services(via online filing, using only pre-approved database descriptions of goods/services ), or S$341 per class of goods/services (via online filing, including non-database descriptions of goods/services), or$374 per class of goods/services (via manual filing). After which the examination procedure will start and in case there are any further amendments, it can be done with the payment of requisite fees of S$40 per class (for specification amendments) or S$40 per trademark (for other amendments) filing the TM27.

On acceptance of TM, it will be published for 2 months post which if there are no objections, then it will proceed to registration for 10 years. The experienced professional at the IPLF has helped clients worldwide file their TM in Singapore. The team has successfully led the whole process leading to the grant of the Trademark.

Author: Saransh Chaturvedi (an advocate) currently pursuing LLM from Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law (IIT Kharagpur).  In case of any queries please contact/write back Global Patent Filing us at support@globalpatentfiling.com.