As part of a government-wide initiative to leverage on new technologies, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) will migrate its IP filing system (‘IPOS Digital Hub’) to a new Government on Commercial Cloud (GCC) platform from 1 to 13 May 2024.

To facilitate the migration, the period of 1 to 13 May (both dates inclusive, and please note that 1 May is a public holiday in Singapore) will be declared as excluded days for all IP transactions (such as PCT Singapore national phase filings) under the Acts and Rules, except for selected transactions. Deadlines falling within this period will be automatically extended to 14 May 2024.

IPOS has provided for alternative filing modes for the selected transactions during the above period and these include first or Paris Convention filings for patents, trade marks, registered designs and plant varieties, foreign filing licence requests, and transfer of ownership requests etc. Such selected transactions would still be accorded a filing date on the day of submission via the alternative filing modes, except on 1 May, 5 May and 12 May since these are non-business days.  

Essentially, this means that the IPOS Digital Hub will be decommissioned from 1 May (i.e. midnight of 30 April) and the new GCC platform will go live on 14 May 2024. However, it is reasonably expected that there are likely to be teething problems when rolling out a new platform and thus, if there are new filings coming up in the next few weeks or matters with deadlines falling within the above excluded period, please let us have early instructions prior to 30 April to avoid rushing to lete matters on 14 May.

For avoidance of doubt, the above excluded period does not apply to PCT applications to be filed via the Singapore Receiving Office.