IP Basics for SMEs – What Every Singapore Business Owner Should Know
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Event Information
Many SMEs create valuable business assets every day — from brand names, logos, product designs, marketing materials, software, recipes, processes, customer databases, and trade secrets. However, many business owners only think about intellectual property after a dispute, copycat issue, or missed commercial opportunity.
This session introduces the key types of intellectual property that SMEs should know, including trade marks, copyright, patents, registered designs, trade secrets, and domain names. Participants will learn how IP supports business growth, protects market position, strengthens brand value, and reduces legal and commercial risks.
Key takeaways:
- What is considered as Intellectual Property? E.g., trade marks, patents, designs, copyright (quick introduction to each, with focus on trade marks and patents
- Which IP rights are most relevant to your business
- What are some common mistakes made when protecting trade marks and patents in Singapore
- Do you require trade mark and patent protection beyond Singapore
- How should you expand trade mark and patent protection overseas
- What grants can you make use of in expanding trade mark and patent protection overseas?
The speakers:
Upasana Patel, Partner
Upasana is a Singapore Registered Patent Attorney and Chartered (UK) Patent Attorney, and has been in practice since 2003. She specializes in patents and registered designs, and works with multi-disciplinary clients in the fields of chemical and process engineering, biopharmaceutical engineering, pharmaceutical, food, nano and clean technology and semiconductors. She has extensive local and foreign prosecution experience. Upasana's practice includes drafting and prosecuting patent applications, as well as advising on infringement, validity and patentability issues. Her clients include SMEs, MNCs, research and academic institutions.
Upasana has been listed as an expert by Who’s Who Legal and as “one of the leading minds in pharmaceutical and technological patents.” She has also been recognised as a leading patent professional and ranked individual in the IAM Patent 1000 rankings since 2020, which considered her to be “solutions-oriented” and someone who “understands well the technical aspects of inventions and translates that well into patent language”. More recently, the 2024 edition of the rankings indicated her as being “highly sought after by SMEs, multinationals and research institutes for her first-rate drafting skills”.
Kwok Tat Wai, Partner
Tat Wai has been practicing in the field of intellectual property for more than a decade and currently specializes in the protection and management of trade mark rights in ASEAN and countries worldwide, including trade mark prosecution and registration, providing advice on trade mark protection and branding strategies, and advising regularly on the enforcement of trade mark rights. He has advised and assisted clients in various industries including companies in the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, consumer goods, food and beverage, liquor, automobile, entertainment and fashion industries. He has experience in intellectual property litigation and was involved in numerous cases, representing owners in the enforcement and protection of their intellectual property rights. He also regularly acts for clients in trade mark opposition, revocation and invalidation proceedings.
Tat Wai has been recognized as a "Next Generation Partner" by The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2023 for Intellectual Property, a "Rising Star" by ALB Asia in their Singapore Rising Stars 2023 list for Intellectual Property, and “Rising Star” 2024 by Managing IP.
Kimberly Chen, Associate
A part of Kimberly’s work covers managing trade mark portfolios for clients, ranging from start-ups to SMEs and multinational corporations. This includes advising on branding strategies tailored to clients’ business plans and needs, providing assessment on infringement risks, attending to prosecution matters such as filing, registration and post-registration maintenance, as well as representing clients in contentious proceedings.
Having represented major brand owners in various types of anti-counterfeiting measures, Kimberly also has experience in conducting investigation on infringers (both online and offline), filing reports to e-commerce platforms to request for takedown of infringing listings, liaising with local authorities on conducting raids and seizures of counterfeits, and dealing with infringers via initiating civil and criminal actions. She also represented clients in domain name disputes.
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