A Patent is a monopoly right given by the Government to the owner of an invention to enable him to prevent others from using, copying or making the invention without his consent in the country in which he has obtained patent protection.
To obtain a patent in Singapore, one must submit a patent application to the Registry of Patents. The patent application should contain particulars including a full written explanation or disclosure of the invention and the mechanics by which the invention works.
A patentable invention can be a product or a process that gives a new technical solution to a problem. It can be a new method of doing things, the composition of a new product, or a technical improvement on how certain objects work.
Apart from using the patent to prevent others from exploiting the invention, the patent owner can exploit his patent in many ways. He can use his patent to raise funds for his business, license it to third parties for commercial returns or sell the patented invention for a sum of money.
For an invention to be patentable, it must, in general, satisfy three key criteria.
New : The invention should not have been made known to the public in any way, anywhere in the world. Owners of inventions should be careful to keep the invention secret, until a patent application has been successfully made. An invention is not new if it has already been made available to the public by word of mouth, or it has been commercially exploited, or it has been featured in an article or advertised in the press, or it has been demonstrated. Such disclosure may be novelty destroying and forms one of the grounds for the revocation of a patent.
In certain cases, it may be necessary to disclose the invention before the application for a patent is made, e.g. disclosure to a marketing consultant. Care must be taken to ensure that the disclosure is made in confidence so that such disclosure will not be fatal to the subsequent patenting of the invention.
Once a date of filing has been obtained for the patent application, the invention can claim a "Patent Pending" status and the applicant can proceed to disclose the invention as indicated in the patent application to interested parties. As part of the application process, the patent application will be published. Once published, details of the invention will be made available for public inspection.
Inventive Step : The invention must be something that represents an improvement over any existing product or process that is already available. The improvement must be non-obvious to a person who is skilled in the art in that technological field of the invention. If an invention is new yet obvious to a person skilled in the art, the invention would not fulfil the inventive step requirement.
Industrial Application : The invention must be useful and have some form of practical application. It should be capable of being made or used, or achieving a concrete end result in any industry.
>> It is important to know the state-of-the-art before filing for a patent. An inventor would not have to re-invent the wheel and the owner of the invention would not infringe on other patents filed or granted. Some resources available to help search for existing patents include ePatents, SurfIP and the search terminals available at the IPOS' Public Search Area. You may also wish to check the databases of other countries.
An invention of a method of treatment of the human or animal body by surgery or therapy or of diagnosis practised on the human or animal body shall not be taken to be capable of industrial application, and hence, is not patentable.
Also, an invention that is generally expected to encourage offensive, immoral or anti-social behaviour will not be published or patentable even if it satisfies the three key criteria.