Interested in deferring search and/or examination in Singapore at no cost?

Ordinarily, the deadline for requesting search and/or examination of a Singaporean patent application by IPOS is 36 months from the earliest priority date. For applications which enter the Singaporean national phase on or around the 30 month deadline, this leaves just 6 months in which to make a decision on the strategy to be pursued when requesting examination. For many applicants, particularly those who wish to leverage prosecution strategy for related applications in the same family, this deadline comes too early. As a result, many patent applicants in Singapore avail themselves of the generous 18 month extension period to allow substantive examination of related applications in the family to mature and/or to allow for their commercial strategy to develop. However, this generous extension period doesn’t come free, nor is it cheap, at S$250 for the request itself and a further S$200 for each month of extension sought. The cost of the extension period can quickly add up, particularly when lengthy extensions are sought – which in our experience is often required to allow examination of corresponding applications to progress sufficiently. However, there is some good news for existing and new patent applicants filing into Singapore.

On 19 August 2024, IPOS announced a pilot initiative whereby eligible applicants may obtain, at no cost, an additional 18 months beyond the initial 36-month deadline to file requests for search and/or substantive examination. This initiative comes following consideration by IPOS of feedback that patent applicants would welcome additional time to consider how best to proceed with the search and/or examination of Singaporean patent applications in view of their global patenting strategy and/or their commercialisation plans.

To benefit from this pilot initiative, applicants must have a Singaporean patent application with an ordinary 36-month deadline for requesting search and/or examination which expires between 1 September 2024 and 31 August 2026.

On approval of a request for extension of time on an eligible application, the period prescribed for requesting search and/or examination by IPOS will be extended by 18 months, at no cost. In cases where applicants choose to utilize the full extension period, taking part in this pilot could result in a saving of up to S$3,850 (approx. USD $2,960) in official fees.

More on this Pilot Initiative is available in Circular No. 4/2024 released by IPOS on 19 August 2024.

If you wish to discuss your patent strategy in Singapore, or the ASEAN region more broadly, please contact us.