Singapore unveiled its IP Strategy 2030 (SIPS 2030) recently on World IP Day making its way towards solidifying its position in the global IP arena. Singapore has been a leading IP hub in the Asia Pacific. SIPS 2030 aims to strengthen Singapore’s economic growth with a strong blueprint of innovation and IP for the next 10 years. This strategy aims at keeping the country’s position as a top-ranked IP regime becoming the global hub for IP activities. For this the primary aim of SIPS will be to strengthen its position as the global center, developing the next generation IP filing system. The IP filing system will be launched in mid-2022 featuring predictive assistance capability and a user-friendly dashboard.

^{[Image Source:gettyimages]}

Singapore: A major hub

Singapore has become a major hub for IP-driven companies due to the suitable environment that it provides for the companies. Companies always look for a destination that has multiple benefits and has 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.

With the incoming of SIPS, it will boost the cross-border dispute resolution activities to become a more dynamic hub where Singapore continuously strengthens its global linkage. For ensuring that there is an effective pool of technical experts, initiatives such as collaboration and training providers are also underway. All such initiatives will help to attract more innovative companies with strong IP foundations which will further help in developing jobs and valuable skills in IP. Putting more impetus on the investor confidence, the professional must possess the skills that are relevant for business.

Edwin Tong, Minister of Culture Community and Youth and Second Minister for Law said, “At the individual level, we want to develop good jobs and valuable skills that will last and that will be sustainable in the foreseeable and longer-term future. We’ll improve on the training and education programs of all students and also of all professionals. We’re also introducing a national standard for IA and IP management that can serve as a benchmark for these skills.” Tong is also the deputy chairperson of the SIPS 2030 implementation committee.

“The global economy has experienced important shifts in the last decade, where the value of intangible assets now makes up 54% of the value of global listings, surpassing the value of tangible assets. Globalization, digitalization, and the pandemic have also disrupted businesses and lives, challenging the status quo. The Singapore IP Strategy 2030 is a whole-of-government effort to enable us to seize the opportunities and emerge stronger,” said Tong.

Indranee Rajah, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Second Minister for Finance, Second Minister for National Development and chairperson of the implementation committee said, “Businesses can better unlock the value of their intangible asset (IA), such as through capital raising, and better manage investments in their IA portfolio. Businesses will also have greater opportunities to commercialize and monetize their innovations. By building up enterprise capabilities and skills in IA and IP management and strategy, SIPS 2030 will help Singapore SMEs emerge stronger in the post-pandemic economic landscape.”

Digital economy and Trade Secret

Technological and market changes in the digital economy significantly affect how data is created, distributed, and consumed. The “big data revolution” has seen a huge growth in the generation and collection of digital data, and driven the creation of large datasets and databases which are the “stock feed” on which new technologies such as machine learning rely on. To support an economy powered by digital innovation, Singapore is introducing an exception for computational data analysis in the upcoming Copyright Bill. This new exception will allow the use of copyrighted works for purposes such as text and data mining, data analytics, and machine learning. The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) will continue to study how big data is important for Singapore and whether further changes to Singapore’s IA/IP laws are necessary to help our innovators and enterprises capture economic opportunities offered by the digital economy. The aim is to find a balance between the interests of creators (providing incentives to encourage further innovation in big data) and ensuring access by third parties to maximize the benefits of the original works.

Trade secrets are increasingly important for enterprises. For example, in a 2017 survey of senior executives by Baker McKenzie, four in five respondents indicated that trade secrets were an important, if not essential, part of their business. In light of this, IPOS has embarked on a study to ensure that our regime for the protection of trade secrets is up-to-date and conducive for innovative enterprises. We will also look into ways to ensure that Singapore-based enterprises can effectively protect and use their trade secrets, for example by raising awareness of the importance of trade secret management and equipping enterprises with the necessary resources, tools, and capabilities to do so. These may include information guides, training programs, and other services such as digital time-stamping.

Author: Saransh Chaturvedi an associate at Global Patent Filing,  in case of any queries please contact/write back us at support@globalpatentfiling.com.