Singapore continues its mission to be an IP hub in Asia

At the Global IP Forum in Singapore this week the Singapore government continued to promote the island state as an ASEAN IP hub. Its IP Hub Master plan capitalizes on the fact that Singapore is regarded as a safe pair of IP hands.  Mr K. Shanmugam, Minister for Law highlighted in his speech a number of areas they are working to develop Singapore:

-        Improvements in patent pendency and quality driven by IPOS, along with PPH systems with major countries and the ASPEC system in ASEAN

-        Increasing IP ownership at SMEs through an education program and IP advisory service

-        A new IP financing program where 3 participating local banks will loan against IP, backed with a government guarantee

-        An IP Valuation and Commercialization program at IPOS called IPValueLab to promote commercial deals involving IP

-        A series of ADR systems for IP disputes designed to simply and reduce costs for disputes, including creating a panel of IP arbitrators and a patent expert determination system

Singapore is gunning to win regional hub status for IP by putting in place world class IP infrastructure, focused in commercialization of IP. IP Komodo is keen on seeing how many IP transactions and deals flow now to Singapore.