In early January 2022, Pascal Faure, Director General of INPI and Ms. Rena Lee, his counterpart at the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) signed a new work plan for 2022-2023, which succeeds the October 21, 2020 plan around the promotion and commercialization of IP in support of businesses. Several exchanges of best practices on the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) are notably planned.

INPI and IPOS have been collaborating since September 2008, particularly in the areas of commercialization and valuation of IP assets, and business support. In 2018, Frédérique Vidal, Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, visited Singapore to launch the France-Singapore Year of Innovation initiated to strengthen collaboration between the French and Singaporean innovation ecosystems and encourage events and activities in France and Singapore.

On the occasion of the signing of the 2022-2023 plan, INPI and IPOS first underlined the positive outcome of the first work plan for the 2020/2021 period, which included a focus on business support involving in particular the participation of both offices in flagship events in their countries: Viva Technology 2021 in Paris (which aims to bring together the main players in the tech industry in Europe) and IP Week@SG 2021 in Singapore (a major trade show bringing together IP opinion leaders, legal experts and innovative companies for a week.)

Exchange on respective IP news

IPOS highlighted the “Singapore IP Strategy 2030”, launched on April 26, 2021 and the new Copyright Act which came into force on November 21, 2021. The INPI, for its part, mentioned the successful implementation of the Pacte law on the IP component, considerably strengthening the confidence of French companies’ partners internationally…

AI in Singapore

Singapore is a major international player in the field of AI, as we have seen in the report dedicated to AI in Singapore published in the 6th issue of ActuIA magazine, available on newsstands and by subscription.

The country has set itself the goal of becoming a leader in the development and deployment of AI solutions in strategic sectors. To achieve this goal, it has invested $91.5 million over 5 years in the AI Singapore program launched in 2017. Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim, then Minister for Information and Communication, stated:

“AI.SG will enable three fundamental things: First, to address major challenges affecting society and industry. Second, to invest in research to be present in the next wave of scientific innovation. And finally, to develop innovation in artificial intelligence and its integration by companies. We have identified three preferred application areas for AI.SG: finance, city management solutions and healthcare.”

AI SG’s research focus is on the next generation of AI algorithms and energy optimization. Its overarching goal is to develop ethical and transparent systems, governance and accountability framework for the public good.

This new work plan for the next two years will allow INPI and IPOS to continue their experience sharing, especially in the field of artificial intelligence.

AI as a priority in the 2022-2023 plan

The sharing of experience around artificial intelligence will be organized around the following themes

• “Artificial Intelligence in IP operations”: this activity aiming to continue sharing experiences on AI projects developed by INPI and IPOS, to companies or IP offices themselves. A first fruitful meeting on this topic had taken place between IPOS and INPI Lab experts on AI on October 22, 2021.
• “Patent-related activities”: will aim to share experiences on Artificial Intelligence, best practices and patent policies at INPI and IPOS over time.
  A working group has recently been created within the patent division of INPI to study the patentability of inventions resulting from artificial intelligence, and more specifically the granting of patents for inventions developed by artificial intelligence.
  Experts from the patent departments of both countries will discuss the intellectual property challenges they have faced and/or the policy implemented as well as the tools used.
• “AI and IP policy” will give rise to further exchanges with a view to highlighting the impact of Artificial Intelligence on copyright and the creative industries.

Translated from L’IA axe majeur du nouveau plan de travail INPI-IPOS