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IP Week @ SG: Asia at the centre of fast-changing global IP landscape
27 August 2024
The intellectual property global landscape is fast changing, and Asia is at the centre of it – so said Daren Tang, director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and former chief executive of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), in his keynote address at the opening ceremony of IP Week @ SG at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre in Singapore on August 27, 2024.
Daren Tang, director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization
“As recently as 2000, 70 percent of patent filings came from the G7 economies. This landscape is now fast changing,” said Tang. “Not only are more people using IP, but the engines powering this growth are increasingly diverse. Now 70 percent of patent filings come from outside the G7. And of course, Asia is at the centre of these developments.”
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region is helping to power this shift. According to Tang, between 2017 to 2022, IP offices around the region saw the number of patent, trademark and design applications jump by nearly 40 percent, from just over 400,000 to nearly 600,000 filings.
In terms of patent applications in particular, Asia as a whole accounts for more than two-thirds of the filing activity, which is growing worldwide – increasing by 1.7 percent to reach a record 3.5 million applications in 2022.
Emphasizing that the above figures are certainly not isolated statistics, Tang revealed that six ASEAN economies are now in the top half of WIPO’s Global Innovation Index, which annually ranks countries in terms of their capacity to innovate and success at innovation activities.
Furthermore, ASEAN’s leading brands are now valued at over US$250 billion, while creative exports have generated almost US$35 billion.
Edwin Tong, Singapore's minister for culture, community and youth and second minister for law
For Edwin Tong, Singapore’s minister for culture, community and youth and second minister for law and guest of honour at IP Week @ SG, there is no reason not to be optimistic about ASEAN. “Connecting to ASEAN, working with the rest of our ASEAN neighbours, is an important priority for us. Within ASEAN, Singapore has been working very closely with other member states to improve access to IP information and services,” he said.
Tong reported that in 2024, Singapore expanded its ongoing collaboration with the IP office of Laos, among other collaboration initiatives. “Currently, holders of Singapore-registered patents already benefit from expedited protection in Laos through a simple pre-registration process. Building on this success, we are extending it to Singapore-registered design holders, allowing them swift access to the Laos market through a similar pre-registration process as well,” he shared.
Globally, a seismic shift is also happening elsewhere. In the area of value creation, investments in intangible assets (IA) have grown three times faster than those in tangible assets over the past 50 years, with the former valued at nearly US$62 trillion in 2023. This number indicates an 8 percent year-on-year increase. “The pace of growth has been accelerating. The value of IA has more than doubled from the past decade ago, and we see no signs of that abating,” said Tong.
Innovation patents are growing as well. “Already, one-third of all patents relate to digital technologies – like 5G, AI and others. With IP activity growing strongly in areas like semiconductors and Gen AI, this trend is only set to grow,” Tang noted.
According to Tang, it is necessary to rethink and refresh how we look at IP, including the idea of turning IP into assets. “For member states, IP is not just a way of bringing together global community but increasingly a tool, a catalyst for jobs, investments, growth and development as well as a way to address our common global challenges like climate change,” he added.
To make these happen and accelerate these trends, Tang underscored the importance of continuously bringing IP to the grassroots level, among others. On this note, the WIPO director general shared that WIPO made history in May 2024 when all 193 member states agreed by consensus on a new landmark treaty on IP Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge.
With the theme “Ideas to Assets: Forward Together with IP,” IP Week @ SG ran from August 27 to 28, 2024. Into its 13th edition, IP Week @ SG brings together the innovation community comprising policymakers, business leaders and legal experts to discuss the latest in the IP sector.
– Espie Angelica A. de Leon, reporting from Singapore
