Singapore hailed best in Asia for IP rights protection: survey

It shares the top spots with Finland, Switzerland, and New Zealand as the best globally.

Singapore retained its position as the best in Asia for IP rights protection, and inched up one notch to be the fourth globally, according to the latest International Property Rights Index (IPRI) 2019 report.

The island counts amongst IP powerhouses such as Finland, Switzerland and New Zealand worldwide. Singapore was placed with these countries under the three core categories of legal and political environment, physical property rights, and intellectual property (IP) rights.

Notably, Singapore topped the protection of IP rights category in Asia.

The index also ranked Singapore highly in the Gender Equality Index which measures equal access to land, credit, property, inheritance and social rights across genders.

Also read: Singapore speeds up processing time for tech patent application

Developed by US-based Property Rights Alliance, IPRI “serves as a barometer for the strength of protection across physical and intellectual property.” It is reportedly determined using data from official sources across various international organisations together with case studies compiled from 118 think-tanks and policy organisations in 72 countries involved in research, policy development, education and promotion of property rights.

The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) recently launched the world’s first trademark registration mobile app, reducing the time taken to file a trademark by 80%, and utilising artificial intelligence (AI) technology in image search during the registration process.

IPOS has also announced new initiatives in partnership with eight other ASEAN IP offices to expedite Industry 4.0 patent applications in key emerging technologies such as fintech, cybersecurity and robotics patent applications. The IPOS Accelerated Initiative for Artificial Intelligence also saw its first use case, with an international firm granted an AI patent in three months, compared to an average of two to four years.