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.

The Singapore High Court has recently rejected an infringement claim made by the famous American fashion house, Polo/Lauren Company, LP (the plaintiff), against a local fashion retailer, Shop In Department Store Pte Ltd (the defendant).

A recently reported Malaysian case has illustrated the difficulties in accessing the merits of granting an interlocutory injunction based on infringement of a registered design, where similar registered designs are at issue.

A partially valid patent refers to a situation where some claims in a granted patent are found valid while other typically broader claims are found invalid, e.g. during infringement proceedings.

A patent applicant must provide a complete description in their patent specification of how his or her invention is put into practice. During the patent application process, the patent specification is made available to the public by being published. In most countries, publication of a patent application usually takes place 18 months from the earliest date that an application was first filed for the invention. Singapore has a similar provision.

Singapore residents must file a patent application in Singapore first or obtain permission from the Registrar of Patents before proceeding to file a foreign patent application first. This provision does not apply to patent applications first filed outside Singapore by a person resident outside Singapore.

The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) introduced a national standard of a management and auditing tool named <U>S</U>trategies for <U>C</U>reation, <U>O</U>wnership, <U>P</U>rotection and <U>E</U>xploitation of <U>I</U>ntellectual <U>P</U>roperty, or "SCOPE-IP". In our technology driven world, intellectual property ("IP") plays a critical role and successful companies recognise the importance of performing due diligence so as to aggressively exploit their IPs to full potential.

This was an opposition brought by Mark Richard Jeffery and Guy Anthony (the Opponents), owners of the registered mark "JEFFERY-WEST" in Class 25, against Nautical Concept Pte Ltd (the Applicant) who applied to register "jWEST" as a trade mark in Class 25 for similar goods, i.e. shoes/footwear.

The Singapore Patents Act was amended on 1 July 2004. The amendments have brought about various changes to the search and examination options available to applicants using the PCT route. The search and examination options available for pre- and post-1 July 2004 cases are briefly outlined below.

Search and Examination procedures in Singapore were amended in accordance with the changes in the Singapore Patents Act in relation to patent applications with filing dates after 1 July 2004. For PCT National Phase entry applications into Singapore, the effective filing date is the international filing date.

In our 01 February 2007 article, it was reported that opposition proceedings had been brought by Mark Richard Jeffery and Guy Anthony (the Opponents), owners of the trade mark "JEFFERY-WEST" mark in Class 25 against Nautical Concept Pte Ltd (the Applicant), who applied to register the mark "jWEST" in Class 25.

The Singapore Network Information Centre (SGNIC) will be launching second level domain names (SLDs) come 3 January 2005. Until now, Singapore has only allowed registration of third level domain names (TLDs) such as <<I>name.com,sg>. The move mirrors that of Hong Kong, the United States of America, China and Japan, which saw strong uptake for SLDs following their introductions earlier on. In anticipation of a surge in registrations, SGNIC has introduced a "sunrise" period, from 1

The Intellectual Property (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 2004, which came into force on 1 July 2004, incorporates significant changes to, among other things, the following copyright-related legislation, in line with Singapore’s commitments under the United States of America - Singapore Free-Trade Agreement (USSFTA) IP Chapter.