The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) now offers eligible patent applicants an additional 18 months of free search and examination requests.
Normally, the latest deadline for filing a search request and/or a substantive examination request for a patent application in Singapore is 36 months from the earliest priority date. For PCT applications that enter the Singapore national phase around 30 months, applicants therefore only have 6 months to decide which substantive examination strategy to adopt for their patent applications. For many applicants, especially those who wish to utilize prosecution strategies in related applications in the patent family, these 6 months are too short a time. Therefore, many patent applicants in Singapore take advantage of the 18-month grace period to wait for the substantive examination of related applications in the patent family to mature, or for commercial development. However, the request fee for this grace period is as high as S$250, and an additional S$200 must be paid for each month of extension. But recently, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore launched a pilot program to change this situation.
On August 19, 2024, IPOS announced a pilot program under which eligible applicants can obtain an additional 18 months, free of charge, to file a request for search and/or substantive examination after the initial 36-month deadline. The program will start on September 1, 2024 and end on August 31, 2026.
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