Mr Daren Tang, Chief Executive of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) has been officially appointed as the next Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). WIPO is a specialised United Nations (UN) agency based in Geneva, Switzerland, with 193 member states and an annual revenue in excess of S$600 million. Mr Tang will take over the helm of WIPO on 1 October 2020 for a term of six years. This marks the first time a Singaporean will lead a UN agency and WIPO’s first Director General from Asia.

In conjunction with the World Intellectual Property Day1 2020 celebrations themed “Innovate for a Green Future”, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) will offer a pilot programme to accelerate grants of patent applications in all technology fields to just six months, starting from 4 May 2020. The programme – the SG Patent Fast Track - is the world’s fastest application-to-grant process of its kind.

IPOS International and the Singapore University of Social Science (SUSS) jointly offer full complimentary access to a nine-hour online training course on leveraging a company’s intellectual property (IP) assets for business growth, from 13 April 2020 to 4 May 2020, which coincides with Singapore’s COVID-19 ‘Circuit Breaker’ period.