By Jaynthi Kanesarajah
IPOS Digital Hub (the e-services portal of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore) will be migrating to the Government on Commercial Cloud platform from 1 to 13 May 2024. During this period, IPOS Digital Hub and IPOS Go mobile app will not be available. In order to facilitate the migration, the Registrar has issued a practice direction stipulating that 1 to 13 May 2024 will be classified as excluded days and deadlines falling during this period will be extended to 14 May 2024.
Key Takeaways
- IPOS Digital Hub Migration – the portal and IPOS Go app were unavailable from 1 to 13 May 2024 during migration to the Government on Commercial Cloud.
- Excluded Days & Extensions – deadlines falling within 1 to 13 May 2024 are treated as excluded days and extended to 14 May 2024.
- Affected Matters – extensions cover actions like responding to examination reports, renewing IP rights, reinstatement requests, and filing oppositions.
- Transactable Business – some filings could still proceed via alternative modes on certain non‑excluded days (2–4, 6–11, and 13 May).
- Key Takeaway – applicants are protected with automatic deadline extensions while critical services transition to the new platform.
Protect Your IP Today.
Deadlines that fall within the excluded days that will be extended to 14 May 2024 are non-exhaustive but include the following matters: –
- Responding to deficiency letters or examination reports
- Renewing a patent, trademark, registered design, plant variety protection or geographical indication
- Submitting requests for continued processing or reinstatement
- Filing notices of oppositions or requests for extension of time to file a notice of opposition
However, at the same time, to minimise disruption, certain transactions classified as “transactable business” can still be carried out through alternative filing modes. For these transactions, 2 to 4 May, 6 to 11 May and 13 May 2024 are not excluded days.
Transactable business that can still be carried out during the specified non-excluded days is tabled as follows:-
In order to protect applicants, any time limit for claiming of priority which fall within the excluded days, and which is missed will still be extended up to 14 May 2024.
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