Good morning
WIPO colleagues
MFA colleagues
Distinguished speakers & participants
Ladies and gentlemen
1. On behalf of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, allow me to welcome all of you to Singapore, and to the Singapore-WIPO Patent Information Workshop.
2. This workshop is the second activity held under 2009 workplan of the Singapore-WIPO MoU on Joint Training in the Field of Intellectual Property. In April this year, we held a successful Sub-regional Seminar on Policy Options in the Application of Copyright Law. I believe this is the first occasion we have organized a training activity focusing on patent information for officials in the Asia-Pacific region. Our previous activities in the field of patents have been on patent drafting and the PCT system.
3. Why was this topic chosen? Today, more and more patent information is being made publicly available. This wealth of information can be used by companies and stakeholders to monitor competitor activity, assess technology trends, identify potential markets, evaluate investment strategies and above all, enable business to get the best value on patent portfolios for their commercial activities. However, many users have little understanding as to how they can effectively utilize patent information, let alone the contribution it can make to their innovation process. As IP officials, one of the challenges before us is to help our stakeholders make good use of this information in order to help them gain a strategic advantage in an ever-competitive market place. IP offices can help by making available patent information in the best way possible.
4. For patent examiners and industrial property offices, the effective use of patent information is vital to our day-to-day work. As we know, patent offices nowadays are faced with an ever-increasing workload. The growing pressures to provide quality examinations in a timely manner cannot be underestimated. Laborious, time-consuming searches on the constantly expanding body of scientific literature, technical databases and prior art for relevant information to determine fulfillment of patentability requirements, coupled with the increasingly complex patent applications have served only to exacerbate these pressures.
5. It is for this reason that Singapore and WIPO have decided to devote one activity in our 2009 MOU workplan to help patent offices in the Asia-Pacific region enhance their use of patent information. On this note, let me extend my deepest appreciation to WIPO for putting together a very comprehensive workshop programme for today and tomorrow. This activity, I believe, ties in with WIPO’s ongoing efforts to assist IP offices in the effective management and utilization of patent information.
6. We are also particularly grateful to WIPO for agreeing to time this workshop to coincide back-to-back with the Europe-Asia Patent and Patent Information Conference which will examine issues of IP strategy and management. We hope that you - the participants - will make full use of opportunities available at these two events to better equip yourselves to handle and manage patent information-related issues in your respective offices.
7. Finally, allow me to thank the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore for partnering us, not only in organizing today’s workshop, but also for the longstanding support rendered to the many activities under our MOU with WIPO.
Thank you very much, and I wish everyone here a successful workshop.