An Overview of the Singapore Intellectual Property Rights written by: Cecilia Karanja Intellectual Property, abbreviated as IP and known also as Industrial Property, refers to various kinds of creations of the human mind for which exclusive rights are recognized. The Intellectual property Law exists to grant business owners, artistes and innovators exclusive intellectual rights regarding many intangible assets and these are for a specified duration.
Examples
• Business owners are given exclusive rights regarding the use of their trademarks as well as geographical indications that were established by the business owners
• Innovators get protection for their industrial designs, patents, confidential information and trade secrets.
• Creative artists, on the other hand, are given exclusive copyrights concerning musical, dramatic, artistic and literary works which they have created.
Types of intellectual properties in Singapore
The law in Singapore recognizes several kinds of intellectual properties and the major ones are explained below.
1. Trademarks
Basically, a trademark refers to a sign which you use to distinguish the goods or services you produce from those of other manufacturers. Graphically, a trademark could be represented as a signature or a logo of your company.
Using a registered trademark, it is possible to protect your brand through restricting the use of the logo or the name by other people. After you have acquired it, it will last indefinitely. You only need to renew it after every 10 years. Given the fact that a trademark is a type of intellectual property, it can be licensed or assigned to others.
Importance of registering a trademark
The law does not force anyone to register a trademark in Singapore. Howe...
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...es of shapes, ornament or patterns, or configurations applied to articles using any industrial process. By registering a design, you effectively protect an article’s external appearance. Primarily, registered designs are meant to safeguard designs for use industrially.
Why register a design
Through registration of a design, you not only get an exclusive right to ownership but also the right to stop other people using your design without your express authorization. There are many ways through which you may exploit your design. When you prevent copying by other people, it will safeguard your market share. Also, you could sell the design or license it to others for a fee.
5. Common Law Rights
Things such as goodwill, reputation, know-how and confidential information are protected using common law. However, Singapore does not have a specific statutory legalization.
“Copyright is a fundamental right of ownership and protection common to all of the arts” (O’Hara & Beard, 2006, p. 8). “It is a form of intellectual Property (IP)” and it gives the owner exclusive rights to the copyright (O’Hara & Beard, 2006, p. 11).
Intellectual property is an incredibly complicated facet of the law. In the United States, we have many laws in place to control and limit profiting from others intellectual property. The issue is not only profiting from others intellectual property, but not purchasing the property from the originator as well. We will discuss why it is important to protect this property as well as why it is tremendously difficult to regulate all these safe guards. “Intellectual Property has the shelf life of a banana.” Bill Gates
In every given business, the name itself portrays different meanings. This serves as the reference point and sometimes the basis of customers on what to expect within the company. Since personality affects product image (Langmeyer & Shank, 1994), the presence of brand helps in the realization of this concept. Traditionally, brand is a symbolic manifestation of all the information connected with a company, product, or service (Nilson, 2003; Olin, 2003). A brand is typically composed of a name, logo, and other visual elements such as images, colors, and icons (Gillooley & Varley, 2001; Laforet & Saunders, 1994)). It is believed that a brand puts an impression to the consumer on what to expect to the product or service being offered (Mere, 1995). In other application, brand may be referred as trademark, which is legally appropriate term. The brand is the most powerful weapon in the market (LePla & Parker, 1999). Brands possess personality in which people associate their experience. Oftentimes, they are related to the core values the company executes.
Passing off is not confined to that resulting from the use of registered trade marks. While the TMA 1994 protects trade marks as property immediately upon registration, the law of passing off is said to protect as property the trade goodwill that develops in the market place. Although, passing off does not confer monopoly rights, passing off and trade mark law deal with overlapping factual situations, although, s 2(2) of the TMA 1994 s 2(2) maintains passing off as a separate cause of action. Passing off seeks to protect not the claimant’s sign as such but the claimant’s customer connection or "goodwill" built up around that sign or the claimant’s business. According to Alice Blythe, “Passing off seeks to protect business goodwill, which is the trading reputation of the economic undertaking proclaimed by the sign. The business goodwill proclaimed by the sign will be perceived by consumers in a very similar way to which Laddie J described for trademarks.” This a strong similarity to trade mark
A trademark is a familiar sign, design or expression which identifies products or services of a specific source. It can be defined also as anything which takes a distinctive form terms, words, signatures, letters, symbols, titles, tax stamps, pictures, inscriptions, advertisements or packs or any other mark or a combination thereof, used or is intended to be used, either in distinguishing goods, products or services whatever their origin is, or to show that goods or products are owned by the mark owner by virtue of their manufacture, selection or dealing in, or to indicate the performance of a service.
People move away from their extended families, and traditions can fade, which is why it is important to have a trademark that easily identifies your ...
Trademarks are "signs", according to Alan Davidson, which distinguish particular goods and services (268). Davidson's position is that a trademark means a representation of a company’s logo which “is protected under common law and the Trade Marks Act 1995” (268). Lundi suggests this protection is not absolute, and that if trademarks are commonly used, they lose legal protections by becoming "too valuable" (18). In essence, they become public property. There are many such product examples including the use of the word Kleenex for a tissue and Skidoo for a snow-mobile. In the case of Aladdin Industries Inc. v. Canadian Thermos Products Limited. In this case, the court held that the primary issue was distinctiveness. The position of the court was that the word “thermos” was properly registered in 1907. But, as the first action claiming copyright infringement was not heard until 1964, too long a period had passed. The word “thermos” in the last 57 years has passed into common parlance and thus genericized. This early case set the standard and created the assumption that genericization must always be negative. However, once a product or service becomes synonymous with the company itself, it can accrue a significant competitive advantage to the originator. Bernard Gova presents compelling evidence regarding how popular Google has become. In 1998, "about 85% of all searches (in Europe) were performed" using Google (364). Thus, Google may be genericized, but most internet searches are conducted using the Google search engine. This means that Google holds a monopoly on the market and being genericized has, if anything, aided in the popularity of their
Intellectual property is the product of creative thought. Intellectual property law establishes rules for the registration, administration, sale, licensing, and dispute resolution of intellectual property (Stim, 2017). By taking the necessary steps to claim
Intellectual property (IP) is defined as property that is developed through an intellectual and creative processes. Intellectual property falls under the category of property known as intangible rights, which includes patents (inventions of processes, machines, manufactures, and compositions of matter), copyrights (original artistic and literary works of), trademarks (commercial symbols), and trade secrets ((product formulas, patterns, designs). Intellectual property rights has a significant value to both individuals and businesses, providing in the case of large companies, over one half of their value on return. Since intellectual property rights are so important to the U.S. economy and its citizens, federal and state law provides protection, for example, civil damages and criminal penalties to be assessed against infringers. Due to the importance of intellectual property to a business, I don’t think that its protection and enforcement is going to be a thing of the past.
Patent protection in Malaysia is governed by the Patents Act 1983, and is obtainable by either or filing a direct national application or entering the national phase of a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) application. There are two patent classifications that an applicant can choose upon application, the standard patent or design patent and the utility patent.
Intellectual property laws, principles and best practices can vary tremendously from nation to nation and are subject to almost constant change, particularly in the rapidly developing Asian market. In order to be distinctive and successful, therefore, it’s imperative that the company’s strategy has been specifically tailored to the Asian market based on environmental analysis.
A copyright is defined as the legal right created by the law that governs a country, that in turn grants the creator of original work exclusive rights for use and distribution for the work that is deemed as a copyright. A copyright is therefore seen as the intellectual assets of a company, from which they use to generate a profit. It is therefore of utmost importance that a company works hard to ensure that their copyrights are not infringed, and that management is
When developing the name of the company, there are many requirements to be met by entrepreneurs to achieve success with a trademark. Names like Coca-Cola, Google, Snickers, Nike, Yahoo, and many other worldwide known brands may serve an example for the future merchandisers that the coinage is the core ele...
There are two main areas of Intellectual Property Rights, such as Copy rights and rights related (neighboring) to copyrights, and Industrial Property. The example of Copyrights is the rights
A copyright is a legal means that gives the creator of mythical, imaginative, musical, or other creative work the solitary right to publish and sell that work. Copyright owners have the right to manage the reproduction of their work, including the right to receive imbursement for that reproduction. An author may contribute or sell those rights to others, including publishers or recording corporations. Breach of a copyright is called copyright