IPOS Appoints NEC To Develop One-Stop IT System

The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) announced today that NEC Asia Pacific (NEC) has been appointed to design and develop a one-stop IT system for all registrable IP in Singapore. Under this new system, the three domains of patent, trademark and design will be integrated into a common IT platform.

The intent of this new Registries IT system is to have a shared customer database so that the same customer who owns more than one type of IP can have a single view and similar user experience.  Such one-stop IT platform is not a common feature of IP Registries around the world.

This new Registries IT system is expected to be ready by end of 2012.  It will result in a more streamlined, expedient and cost-effective IP registration process that would be beneficial to both IPOS’ internal and external stakeholders.

Besides designing and developing the Registries IT system, NEC will also support and maintain the registries system hosted at the Government Data Centre over a period of three years.

Liew Woon Yin, Director-General, IPOS, “The new IT Registries system is part of IPOS’ continual efforts to deliver better service to its customers.  IPOS' Registry operations have developed over time from a manual, paper-based system, to harnessing IT for backend processing work, to providing online Internet e-services for our customers.  We now have the opportunity to leverage technological advances to deliver more value to our customers.  By refining our processes and building a common IT platform, we will streamline our operations for further ease of use as well as present a more uniform and consistent user experience.  We look forward to partnering NEC in this journey."

Kiyofumi Kusaka, CEO, NEC Asia Pacific commented, “NEC has always emphasized on creating innovative technologies and solutions for our customers. Having worked with IPOS over the last 10 years, we understand their business requirements and are delighted to be awarded this project - to create an Intellectual Property registries system where users can benefit from the convenience of a common interface platform.”

FSF's suggestion over the usage of the word Intellectual Property:

Publishers and lawyers like to describe copyright as “intellectual property”—a term also applied to patents, trademarks, and other more obscure areas of law. These laws have so little in common, and differ so much, that it is ill-advised to generalize about them. It is best to talk specifically about “copyright,” or about “patents,” or about “trademarks.”

The term “intellectual property” carries a hidden assumption—that the way to think about all these disparate issues is based on an analogy with physical objects, and our conception of them as physical property.

When it comes to copying, this analogy disregards the crucial difference between material objects and information: information can be copied and shared almost effortlessly, while material objects can't be.

To avoid spreading unnecessary bias and confusion, it is best to adopt a firm policy not to speak or even think in terms of “intellectual property”.

The hypocrisy of calling these powers “rights” is starting to make the World “Intellectual Property” Organization embarrassed.