Singapore’s minister for culture, community, and youth and second minister for law Edwin Tong was picked last year for pushing through a long pending bill that revamped the country’s copyright law.
This year, because of Tong’s efforts, Singapore hit yet another major intellectual property milestone when the parliament passed the Intellectual Property (Amendment) Bill in January.
The bill made key changes to various IP statutes, specifically, the Patents Act, the Trade Marks Act, the Registered Designs Act, the Plant Varieties Protection Act, and the Geographical Indications Act.
On top of that, the judiciary established a new optional track for IP litigation aimed at providing quicker and more cost-effective dispute resolution. This took effect in April 2022 as part of Singapore’s Supreme Court of Judicature (IP) Rules 2022.
In November 2022, Singapore implemented enhanced border enforcement measures for geographical indications and registered designs as part of the European Union-Singapore Free Trade Agreement.
Tong also made headway in the IP valuation and financing domain, including by building a network of professional valuers to support the growing demand for IP assessment work and co-developing an intangible-asset disclosure framework together with an industry working group.
With Tong at the helm of the country’s IP and innovation efforts, Singapore has risen in rank over the years and was named the 7th most innovative nation in the world in the 2022 Global Innovation Index report released by WIPO.
The minister has truly earned his place in this year’s list.
