Asia IP

Closer cooperation between the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) was enhanced by a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed recently. This MOU aims to improve international cooperation between the UKIPO and IPOS on issues concerning copyright, patents, trademarks and designs, and follows the announcement made in July this year by the UK Prime Minister to further cooperation between the two countries on IP protection.

The MOU, titled Memorandum of Understanding concerning Industrial Property between the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore and the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office, sets to establish a global flexible mechanism for developing and furthering cooperation activities between Singapore and the UK in the industrial property field and in information technology services.

Southeast Asia is of growing importance for UK trade and export, accounting for 15% of the UK trade and, with over a thousand UK businesses having their regional headquarters based in Singapore, the city-state serves as a springboard into the wider ASEAN region. The region is expected to grow at 5% this year and become the fourth largest single market by 2030 through the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) due primarily to a rapidly growing middle class consumer market. The MOU sets to unlock increased potential for UK business aboard and benefit the wider UK-ASEAN trade relationship through closer IP cooperation.

According to Daniel R Collopy, principal at Spruson & Ferguson in Singapore, there was already good IP cooperation between the UK and Singapore, even before the MOU. “This MOU looks to strengthen UK-Singapore cooperation by providing a framework for future cooperation between the two countries in intellectual property and information technology services by, for example, sharing best practices in areas such as intellectual property rights protection, IP-related research and the streamlining of IP court processes between the countries.” He says that say through the MOU, Singapore can provide an Asian/Sino focus for UK industrial property issues while the UK can provide a fully-developed common law industrial property history; this will allow both countries to benefit from the sharing of best practices.

“The focus of the MOU is on strengthening IP rights (patents, trademarks and copyrights) so the sectors mostly strengthened are those that rely upon industrial property (e.g., media content suppliers that rely upon copyright protection) and, as specifically addressed in the MOU, information technology services,” Collopy said.