The Singapore Court of Appeal recently overruled a High Court decision upholding registration of the trade mark "NIKE" registered by a Spanish Company, Campomar SL (Campomar).

The plaintiff, Virtual Map, is a leading location-based and mapping consultancy company in the Asia-Pacific region, with headquarters in Singapore. It operates the online streetdirectory.com, a popular website that enjoys heavy user traffic daily.

For Singapore patent applications, it has been a common practice to make voluntary amendments in particular to the claims, at anytime before payment of the grant fee. The patent applications could proceed to grant even though the amendments were not searched and examined.

On 2 September 2004, Singapore parliament passed new legislation which regulates human cloning and other related activities. The Human Cloning and Other Prohibited Practices Act (hereinafter referred to as "The Act") came into force on 1 October 2004. The Act is adapted from various provisions in the Australian Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002.

A company in Singapore that imports and distributes healthcare and lifestyle-related products, OTO Bodycare Pte. Ltd. ("OTO"), recently won its trade mark infringement and passing off suit against a businessman, Hiew Keat Foong, in a case concerning electrical foot massage machines.

It has been brought to our attention by personnel from the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) that, under IPOS’s current interpretation of the rules, extensions of time as of right under Rule 108(3) are not available under the slow track option.

The Singapore High Court has recently delivered a judgement clarifying, among other things, the legal position concerning shape marks.

Currently, an applicant who wishes to register a trade mark in more than one class of goods and/or services must file separate applications for each class. However, this will change with effect from 2 July 2007.