Guide To Registering A Trademark In Singapore
The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), a statutory board under the Ministry of Law handles trademark registration in the city state. An individual desiring to register his trade mark may either apply directly to the Registrar or authorize a trade mark agent to act on his behalf.
Any trade mark in Singapore must be symbolised in graphic form. It must be a sign of some sort, represented by any letter, word, name, signature, number, device, brand, heading, label, ticket, shape, colour and aspect of packaging, either by itself or in any combination using these symbols. Singapore trade mark laws differ from those in countries such as the United States in that you need not provide evidence of use to register a trade mark.
Your main concern when filing any trade mark design is that no one else had already registered a sign that is identical or similar to yours. This is particularly pertinent when it comes to the nature of your business activities. You should perform a thorough search of trade mark signs that are already filed with the Singapore Registry of Trade Marks and available for public scrutiny at the IPOS office or via the eTradeMarks website online.
Upon verifying that no prior trademarks exist that may conflict with the one being applied for, the applicant may already submit the completed trademark registration application to the Singapore Registry of Trademarks and Patents. Options for doing so include by hand, by registered post, or by filing online through the eTrademarks system. Filing fees for registering trademarks under each class is S$340 for manual processing and S$310 for online processing.
The IPOS will then conduct an administrative review of the trademark application to ensure that it is complete, that it complies with the provisions of the Trade Marks Act, and that the necessary fees have been paid. Afterwards it will issue a trademark application number and date of filing to the applicant.
In case there are grounds for objection, the Registry will inform the applicant of the corrections that need to be done within a specified timeframe. Failure to comply with these requirements in the allotted time will result in the application being classified as withdrawn.
A formal search for conflicting marks, geographical names and conformance to the international classification of goods and services will be conducted by the Registry Office. For pharmaceutical products, the Registry of Trade Marks will also check whether the marks consists of a protected International Non-Proprietary Name (INN), which are generic names for specific pharmaceutical substances furnished by the World Health Organization.
If your trade mark passes the conflict test, you must still clear a couple more obstacles before you are home free. Your sign will again by studied to judge whether or not it can be registered under Singapore Trade Mark Laws, which has categories whereby certain marks are disallowed. For instances, marks that lack any distinguishing characteristics may not be entertained. If the examiner finds any objections, you will be asked to make corrections within a certain period of time.
Once it is verified that the trademark complies with Singapore Trademark Laws, the applicant will be notified of the acceptance of the application for registration which will be published in the Trade Marks Journal for public information. This will also allow any interested party to oppose the registration within two months for various grounds including issues such as the application is similar to a pending mark.
Should there be any objections, you can try to have the issue resolved. If the resolution works in your favour and the two months have passed with no further problems, you are free to register your trade mark. You will be issued with a registration certificate and you can use the trade mark freely in corporate paraphernalia.
Article Source: http://www.search-raven.com
About the Author
Visit GuideMeSingapore for latest news about Singapore trademark act and Singapore trademark registration guidelines.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License, which means you may freely reprint it, in its entirety, provided you include the author's resource box along with LIVE links (without "nofollow" tags).
by: SimonRogove
Total views: 9
Word Count: 625
Rating: Not yet rated