Under Singapore Patent Law, the deadline for requesting examination of an application is 36 months from the earliest claimed priority date. If no priority has been claimed in the patent application, the examination deadline is 36 months from the date of filing of the patent application.

The Singapore Patents Act and Singapore Patents Rules contain provisions which allow for the deadline for requesting examination to be deferred. These are set out under Rule 108(4) of the Patents Rules.

Under Singapore patent law, an applicant may file a late request for examination of their patent application, up to 18 months from that deadline.

Such extensions are requested retrospectively and are granted as of right. The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore IPOS charges an official fee per month of the extension (see below for details of a pilot programme allowing extensions of time without charge).

An important point is that the request for extension of time must be made before the expiry of the 18 month period.

Fee Free Extension of Time for Requesting Examination - IPOS Pilot Programme

IPOS has recently issued a circular relating to extensions of time for examination requests.

Circular No. 4/2024, entitled “Pilot Initiative – No Extension of Time Fee to File a Request for a Search and/or Examination Report”, was issued on 19 August 2024.

As part of this pilot programme, any Singapore patent application whose deadline for requesting examination falls between 1 September 2024 and 31 August 2026 may benefit from an extension of time, up to 18 months from the normal deadline, without charge.

For such applications, it is therefore possible to defer the request for examination for up to 18 months, without any extension fees.

Care Needed

We urge our clients to take extra care if they are seeking to make use of these provisions.

First, it is clear from the IPOS Circular the fee-free extensions are only available to those applications whose deadlines for examination fall between 1 September 2024 and 31 August 2026. For all other applications, the normal extension fees will continue to be payable.

In order to determine whether any official fee is payable for an application, you need to establish what the normal deadline for examination is. You then need to see whether that deadline falls within the period set out above to see if it is covered by the pilot programme.

The official fee per month of extension is S$480, so the difference could be significant, particularly for longer extensions of time. This is clearly a factor you will need to take into consideration when making a decision on a case.

Second, it is unclear how long this provision will be available. IPOS indicates that the fee-free extension is part of a “pilot programme”. There is currently no indication that the programme will be extended or made permanent. It is prudent therefore to treat this as being time-limited, and not generally available.

Third, because of the exceptionally long period of time (1.5 years) during which the deadline for examination may be extended, our view is that extra care should be taken when docketing and monitoring any extended deadline for examination, whether this falls under the pilot programme or otherwise.

Status of Application on Register

Under the Act and Rules, an application is treated as abandoned if a request for examination is not filed. Accordingly, the formal status of such an application on the register will be that it is marked as “Abandoned (EOT Possible)” (the EOT indicating that an extension of time).

Once the request for examination is filed, and the necessary extension fees paid, the application will then be marked as “pending”. If the request for examination is not filed within the extension period, the status of the application will then be “abandoned”.

If an applicant wishes to maintain the application as “pending” on the register, then we strongly recommend that examination is requested by the unextended deadline. The application will then continue to be marked as pending on the patent register.

Voluntary Amendments

As always, we recommend that any voluntary amendments be filed (e.g., to remove subject matter not patentable under Singapore law, or to reduce claim number or both) before requesting examination of a Singapore Patent Application.

Please get in touch with us if you wish to find out more information on extensions of time in Singapore.

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