The patent laws of Singapore were amended last year to transform the patent registration regime from a 'self-assessment' to a 'positive grant' patent system. The amendments were contained in the Patents (Amendment) Act 2012, which amended the existing Patents Act ("Amended Patents Act"). The Amended Patents Act is expected to come into force from 14 February 2014 onwards.
Under the Amended Patents Act, only patent applications which have fully positive examination results can proceed to grant. "Fully positive" means that the claimed subject matter of the pending patent application must meet the patentability criteria of novelty, inventiveness and industrial applicability as set out under section 13 of the current Patents Act.
The existing dual-track system comprising a default "fast track" and an optional "slow track" will no longer be available under the Amended Patents Act. In place of the dual-track prosecution system is a single prosecution track.
Further details on the new positive grant system are available in our Firm's Update on this subject. Please click here to access.
At the start of 2013, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon mooted the possibility of creating the Singapore International Commercial Court ("SICC") as an international forum for court-based commercial dispute resolution both within and beyond Asia. A committee was formed to study the viability of the SICC ("SICC Committee"), and on 29 November 2013, the SICC Committee submitted its report to the Ministry of Law. The report has since been published as part of a public consultation which is open until 31 January 2014.
The SICC will be a division of the Singapore High Court and part of the Supreme Court of Singapore. Decisions of the SICC will be appealable to the Singapore Court of Appeal. The SICC will deal primarily with international commercial disputes.
Generally, representation of parties will follow the rules of representation before the Singapore High Court, i.e. only members of the Singapore bar can represent parties, although the Court may admit Queen's Counsel or foreign lawyers on an ad hoc basis. SICC proceedings would generally take place in open court, but certain cases will be kept confidential. SICC judgements will be enforceable in other jurisdictions through reciprocal enforcement provisions or through a common law action on the judgement debt, similar to ordinary judgements.
Foreign law will not be treated as an issue of fact, and need not be proven by way of expert evidence. This is a significant departure from the way in which national courts (in common law jurisdictions) treat foreign law.
The key features of the SICC are discussed in our Firm's Client Update, together with some preliminary observations about this new development in Singapore's legal landscape. Please click here to read it.
The Employment, Parental Leave and Other Measures Bill ("Bill") was introduced for first reading in Parliament on 21 October 2013 and was passed on 12 November 2013. Amongst other things, the Bill provides better protection under the Employment Act ("EA") for persons employed in a managerial or executive position who receive a basic monthly salary not exceeding S$2,500 ("PMEs"), enables a wider pool of "non-workmen" to receive protection under Part IV of the EA, and provides clarification to an employee's entitlement to maternity leave, paternity leave and childcare leave.
The Bill will extend the provisions of the EA (except for Part IV) to additionally cover PMEs. Currently, this group of employees fall within the ambit of the EA only in relation to the payment of their salary. It should be noted that the Bill expressly excludes PMEs from the provisions of Part IV of the EA, which deal with rest days, hours of work and other conditions of service.
Currently, Part IV of the EA only applies to workmen who are in receipt of a monthly basic salary not exceeding S$4,500 and to non-workmen who are in receipt of a monthly basic salary not exceeding S$2,000. The Bill will increase the salary threshold for non-workmen to S$2,500, thereby increasing the pool of employees who are protected by the provisions of Part IV of the EA.
The Bill also provides more clarity on an employee's maternity leave, paternity leave and childcare leave. It proposes a new Fifth Schedule to the EA, which will add greater certainty to the number of days of unpaid maternity leave that a female employee is entitled to if she has already taken her first 8 weeks of maternity leave. The Bill also introduces a new Schedule to the Child Development Co-Savings Act which provides new formulae for the calculation of the minimum number of days of maternity leave, paternity leave and childcare leave which an employee is entitled to.
For a fuller picture of the changes brought about by the Employment, Parental Leave and Other Measures Bill, please refer to our Client Update here.
