IPOS has launched a feedback exercise on the UK Supreme Court’s Emotional Perception ruling, with submissions open from 17 April to 14 May 2026. The official questions go well beyond whether the UK case is merely interesting. IPOS is asking whether the decision is relevant to Singapore patent practice, whether it brings greater clarity to patentable subject matter and its interaction with inventive step, and what practical issues the approach could create for applicants and practitioners.That is why this development deserves more attention than a routine consultation notice. Singapore is...
IPOS has used its supplemental AI patent guidance to make one point much harder to ignore: for AI and data-heavy inventions, the fight is often no longer about whether software-related subject matter can be patented in the abstract. It is about whether the claim and the specification show a real technical contribution tied to a specific problem, rather than a mathematical model dressed up with industry language.That is why the latest clarification matters. The practical pressure is now falling on the parts of an application that many teams still treat too loosely: training-data...
Recent market commentary has started linking Singapore’s IPOS to a supposed AIGC-only green channel. Based on the current official record, that is not the safest way to describe what exists. What can be verified is narrower and more concrete. In 2019, IPOS launched AI², an AI-specific initiative that could take qualifying patent applications from filing to grant in as fast as six months. In 2025, Singapore shifted to SG Patents Fast, a broader programme designed to accelerate office actions rather than guarantee grant timing. Since 4 January 2026, new acceleration requests under SG Patents...
IPOS has now drawn a cleaner timeline for applicants using the Patent Prosecution Highway in Singapore. For PPH requests filed on or after 1 July 2026, the Office says it will endeavour to issue a first office action in about 6 months, down from about 10 months for existing requests. For patent owners already holding allowable claims from a partner office, that changes more than queue position. It brings prosecution timing, internal decision-making and commercial milestones forward together.The more interesting point is that the speed benefit and the fee benefit do not start on the same...
From 1 July 2026, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) aims to issue a first office action within about six months for Patent Prosecution Highway requests filed on or after that date, down from roughly ten months for existing requests. As the new standard moves into operational use, PPH becomes more useful not only as an acceleration route but also as a planning tool for funding, product launches and parallel prosecution.A related cost measure will run from 3 August 2026 to 31 December 2027: where a PPH request is filed together with a new request for a search and/or...
The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore introduced a phased fee revision, with most changes taking effect on 1 September 2025 and the remaining measures applying from 1 April 2026. For patents, excess-claim fees under Forms PF11 and PF12 now begin above 15 claims rather than 20, while the charge has increased from S$40 to S$80 per excess claim. From April 2026, certain excess-claim payments linked to relevant examination requests filed on or after 1 September 2025 are also brought forward to the PF13A response stage. Extension requests across IP procedures are no longer free for the...
Singapore’s Intellectual Property Office (IPOS) has refined its practice guidance for trade mark applications covering virtual goods and Web3.0 services. Descriptions in Class 9 for downloadable virtual goods, Class 35 for retail services involving virtual goods, and Class 41 for virtual entertainment services are expected to identify the digital content or service with greater precision; broad wording such as “virtual goods” or generic NFT-related services may attract objections or require narrowing.The more consequential point concerns revocation for five years’ non-use. Displaying a...
