Recognising the economic value of intellectual property

ON April 26, 2016 we celebrated World Intellectual Property day. Among other things we celebrated many local intellectual property (IP) successes in music, the arts and even the culinary sphere. There was a proliferation of craft works, innovative designs on display at various exhibitions. The creative potential of Singaporeans gave much encouragement to a practitioner who has been active in the IP space for almost 20 years. Implicit in this was vindication of one's career choice, as well as post-graduate training. In these past two decades, I have had a ringside seat to witness the transformation of IP from a regime-based analytical paradigm, into a driver and key performance indicator for economic growth - growth that contributes to GDP, employment and technology transfer.

I have also observed from global IP-filing trends how countries of the world are placing greater emphasis on innovation to turn economies around, and also to chart new pathways for growth.

We have seen an unprecedented surge in IP filings in Singapore and elsewhere. Patent filings in the Republic grew almost 5 per cent last year with 10,814 applications, while trade mark applications rose 9 per cent to 44,203 filings. International patent and trade mark filings have also shown increases year on year. Much of this surge of international filing activity has been driven by North Asia, and China in particular. The increase in IP filing activity is a good indicator of a healthy IP ecosystem. The filing trends are also indicative of how countries in the world are placing a greater emphasis on innovation to turn economies around.