Office opens cooperation between China, Singapore

Intellectual property service providers in Singapore will have easier access to growing opportunities in China, thanks to a newly opened China representative office of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore.

Located in the Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City in Guangdong province, a cooperative project for innovative companies and institutions, the office is designed to help the area become a model zone for IP cooperation between China and Singapore, officials from the two countries said at the opening ceremony on May 24.

As the first representative office of IPOS outside Singapore, the China office is expected to "help an increasing number of Singapore's IP service providers reach out to the increasing number of Chinese innovative enterprises, especially technology companies seeking to expand overseas", according to the IPOS website.

It also aims to provide IP services to those companies in their international business and introduce Singaporean IP service providers to China.

Chen Zhiying, Party chief of Guangzhou's Huangpu district, where the knowledge city is located, said the representative office is a key measure to strengthen the two countries' IP collaboration, and it would promote exchanges and interaction between the two and attract high-end IP service providers.

Ong Ye Kung, Singapore's acting minister of education and co-chairman of the Singapore-Guangdong Collaboration Council, said the knowledge city is an "important flagship project" aimed at catalyzing the economic transformation of Guangdong.

"As more companies from Guangdong bring their innovations to the rest of the world, the first IPOS representative office overseas will facilitate their linkup with IP service providers in Singapore, to protect and manage their innovations in the Southeast Asian region and beyond," Ong said.

Daren Tang, chief executive of IPOS, said that IPOS is "delighted to support the increasing flow of ideas, knowledge and innovation between China and Southeast Asia" through the representative office.

"We want to help Singapore's IP service providers connect with innovative companies in China, and also promote Singapore's suite of IP products and services to Chinese companies that have set their sights on the dynamic ASEAN region," Tang said.

The representative office was proposed by the provincial government of Guangdong and endorsed at a meeting of the Guangdong government, IPOS and the State Intellectual Property Office of China in April 2015 in Guangzhou.

Tan Yih San, then-chief executive of IPOS, said the project would "facilitate the establishment of a fast lane for Chinese companies to access the world market, and for multinational companies to enter China".

The office is also intended to facilitate the exchange of IP services and talent development between China and Singapore.