The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), a statutory board under the Ministry of Law handles trademark registration in the city state. An individual desiring to register his trade mark may either apply directly to the Registrar or authorize a trade mark agent to act on his behalf.

For a trademark to be registered in Singapore, it should be possible to represent it as a graphic. Such a sign could take the form of a letter, a word, a name, a signature, a numeral, a device, a brand, a heading, a label, a ticket, a shape, a colour, an element of packaging, or any combination of these. Singapore trademark law does not require evidence of use to be filed as part of the application process before the trademark registration is granted. This is in contrast to practices in other countries like the United States.

Your main concern when filing any trade mark design is that no one else had already registered a sign that is identical or similar to yours. This is particularly pertinent when it comes to the nature of your business activities. You should perform a thorough search of trade mark signs that are already filed with the Singapore Registry of Trade Marks and available for public scrutiny at the IPOS office or via the eTradeMarks website online.

Upon verifying that no prior trademarks exist that may conflict with the one being applied for, the applicant may already submit the completed trademark registration application to the Singapore Registry of Trademarks and Patents. Options for doing so include by hand, by registered post, or by filing online through the eTrademarks system. Filing fees for registering trademarks under each class is S$340 for manual processing and S$310 for online processing.

The IPOS will then conduct an administrative review of the trademark application to ensure that it is complete, that it complies with the provisions of the Trade Marks Act, and that the necessary fees have been paid. Afterwards it will issue a trademark application number and date of filing to the applicant.

During the review process, the Registry may object to your trade mark sign for whatever reason and ask you to make corrections within a certain period of time. You should fulfill the Registry’s request, or respond accordingly, before the deadline otherwise your application is deemed to have been withdrawn.

A formal search for conflicting marks, geographical names and conformance to the international classification of goods and services will be conducted by the Registry Office. For pharmaceutical products, the Registry of Trade Marks will also check whether the marks consists of a protected International Non-Proprietary Name (INN), which are generic names for specific pharmaceutical substances furnished by the World Health Organization.

If your trade mark passes the conflict test, you must still clear a couple more obstacles before you are home free. Your sign will again by studied to judge whether or not it can be registered under Singapore Trade Mark Laws, which has categories whereby certain marks are disallowed. For instances, marks that lack any distinguishing characteristics may not be entertained. If the examiner finds any objections, you will be asked to make corrections within a certain period of time.

Once your sign fulfills Singapore Trade Mark Laws, you move on to the final stage, which is to publish your mark for public consumption. You will be notified that your mark is accepted for registration before it is published in the Trade Marks Journal. This gives members of the public a chance to object if they believe your design is identical or similar to a mark that is already registered or pending. Any member of the public has the right to object within two months of publication.

Should there be any objections, you can try to have the issue resolved. If the resolution works in your favour and the two months have passed with no further problems, you are free to register your trade mark. You will be issued with a registration certificate and you can use the trade mark freely in corporate paraphernalia.

Tags: Asia

Popularity: 12% [?]

Share This

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!