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The article focuses on the advantages to local and overseas applicants due to changes in the Patents Act and Rules in Singapore, which will be applicable from April 1, 2007. It is stated that some of the advantages are related to including/correcting priority claims or correcting missing parts of the specification. It is mentioned that the changes have made it possible to obtain a filing date with minimum documents.

A summary is presented of the Section 39 of the Singapore Patents Act, related to the renewal of patent applications.

The article presents information on the changes in the Singapore Patents Acts and offers tips to deal with prior art of examination. Under section 2(4)(a) of the Singapore Patents Act, the definition of one claim being related to another claim is if the two claims are identical. As an alternative to the typical practice of filing a divisional application, applicants may instead consider to still pay tile grant fee based on the local examination report.

The article offers information on the process of the examination and grant of patents for foreign applicants under the Singapore patent system. It states that changes with regards to the requirements for examination and grant of applications were introduced in July 2004, and under Section 29(c)(ii) of the Singapore Patents Act, an applicant needs only furnish prescribed information prior to the deadline to pay the grant fee, which is 42 months from the priority date.

The article focuses on the divisional application in the Singapore Patents Act. Under the Act, a divisional application must be filed before grant conditions are met for the parent application. The grant conditions include formal requirements to be met for the parent application as well as payment of the grant fee for the parent application. The deadline for filing the divisional application is linked to prosecution of the parent application.

The article provides information on partially valid patent in Singapore which is a situation wherein some claims in a granted patent are found valid while others are found invalid. Under the Singapore Patents Acts, a relief for infringement of a partially valid patent is provided. The author suggests that any applicant wishing to depend on a final examination report containing objections should consider the issue of obtaining relief for partially valid patents.

This article focuses on the proposed changes in the Singapore Patents Act and Rules in accordance with the changes in the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore recently issued a consultation paper on the proposals. The PCT will come into force on April 1, 2007. The rectification of the omission of a part of the submitted patent specification will be easier with the new PCT Rules.

The article discusses the issues related to the Chapter I application under Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT) in Singapore. Chapter I states that the applicant can rely on the international preliminary report on patentability of the PCT application for grant of a patent. If the Chapter I search and examination option is chosen by the applicant, certain documents are required to be submitted to the Registrar.

The article presents information on the changes in the Singapore patent laws. It was a common practice to make voluntary amendments, especially to the claims, before a grant fee is paid. However, now it is mandatory for each claim to have at least one examined claim. The new requirement for examined claims is still important even if no voluntary amendment is made. If a case has the issue of unexamined claims after grant, the concern could be addressed by making a request for post-grant search and examination of the unexamined claims.

The article presents information on the patent system in Singapore. It is stated that all claims at the time of filing in Singapore have been searched by an international searching authority (ISA) although in some cases, the international search report (ISR) may show multiple inventions. It is noted that while the second group of claims can only be prosecuted in a divisional application, the pending application may have the final examination report .

The article reports that a circular has been issued by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) in the aftermath of the March 11 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami, reminding applicants that Singapore has various existing provisions in its Patents, Trade Marks and Designs Act and Rules regarding assisting affected applicants. The provisions in the Singapore Patents Act are based largely on the Patents Act of Great Britain.

The article focuses on debate on whether New Zealand be a prescribed country under the Singapore Patents Rules. It mentions that the corresponding New Zealand patent application should examine its novelty, inventive action and industrial applicability to clear the Section 30(3)(c)(ii) mandates of the Singapore Patents Act. It highlights the criteria mentioned under section 38A of the Singapore Patents Act which need to be met for succeeding in requesting post-grant examination and search.

The article discusses the standing of New Zealand as a prescribed country under the Singapore Patents Act. Under the Singapore Patents Rules, the prescribed countries including Australia, Canada and New Zealand. However, New Zealand is known as one of the few jurisdictions that assesses for local novelty only and so to obtain grant of a Singapore patent application, one should be cautious in doing so New Zealand application to avoid having a patent vulnerable to validity attack.

The article provides suggestions on using foreign search report under the regulation of Singapore Patents Act. It discusses Section 29(2) (e) (i) of Singapore Patents Act. It states some situations where foreign search report reference as Applicant's Admitted prior Art (AAPA) and lists a particular section, then relevant documents must be submitted with the request. But if no documentation is there then foreign search report is not a possible option.

The article focuses on the hidden patent amendment limitations, under the Singapore Patents Act. An applicant can select from a number of options when requesting local substantive examination. However, these options have some hidden limitations. Under the act, if the applicant makes major amendments to the claims that vary from the original claims, the examiner is allowed to not examine the amended claims. It is suggested that the applicant studies the desired claim amendments carefully.

The article offers information on the consequences of the requirement of examined claims under the Singapore Patents Act. One consequence is that where claims have been amended to achieve allowance, but the amendments are considered not necessary by the applicant, it is not possible to present the previous claims for grant in Singapore. Another consequence is that there may be different claim sets that can proceed to grant under reliance of a corresponding foreign application.

The article reports that search and examination procedures of patents have been changed in Singapore. The procedures have been amended to bring in line with changes in the Singapore Patents Act relating to patent applications with filing dates after July 1, 2004. The applicants can lodge a block extension application to extend the various examination and prosecution deadlines by 18 months. It has been said that the majority of PCT National Phase entry applicants fall under the new law.

The article reports that according to the section 34 of the Singapore Patents Act 1994, residents of Singapore must file their patent application in Singapore first or obtain permission from the Registrar of Patents if they want to file a foreign patent application first. The only exception to this rule is when an applicant files a patent application for the same invention in the Registry not less than two months before the patent application is filed overseas, and the Registrar has not issued a direction prohibiting publication of the information in it because it is prejudicial to public safety or Singapore's defense. While section 34 does not apply when the patent application has first been filed in a country outside Singapore by a person resident outside Singapore, the legal position is unclear when there are several inventors or patent applicants involved where at least one of the inventors or patent applicants is resident in Singapore at the material time.