Singapore and Intellectual Property at WIPO
In the early 1980s, Singapore was a country where commercial-scale piracy and counterfeiting were tolerated. The common view was simple: Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan got rich by copying, so why should Singapore be any different? Three decades later, Singapore hosted a major international treaty conference, had the first overseas WIPO office in the world, and was recognized as a model of intellectual property cooperation.
This is part of my retelling of “50 Years of Singapore and the United Nations” (Tommy Koh, Li Lin Chang, Joanna Koh, 2015, ISBN: 978-9814713030).
Chapter 33 is written by Geoffrey Yu, who spent 25 years working inside the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the UN agency that handles intellectual property worldwide. He was not just an observer. He was one of the key people who made the Singapore-WIPO relationship happen. His chapter is a first-person account of how he helped turn a skeptical developing country into a global showcase for IP cooperation.
What Is WIPO?
WIPO is a United Nations specialized agency based in Geneva. Its job is to promote the protection of intellectual property around the world. That means patents, trademarks, copyrights, industrial designs, and more. If you have ever wondered who sets the rules for how inventions and creative works are protected across borders, WIPO is a big part of the answer.
The Skeptical 1980s
Geoffrey Yu’s first job at WIPO was to promote the use of intellectual property in developing countries across Asia and the Pacific. That sounds straightforward. It was not.
In the early 1980s, intellectual property was basically a dirty word in most developing countries, including Singapore. When Geoffrey visited Singapore, he saw “sceptical faces, found ignorance of the subject as well as faced tough questions.”
The toughest questions came from SISIR, the Singapore Institute of Standards and Industrial Research. The government had asked SISIR to figure out whether protecting intellectual property was actually in Singapore’s interest. At that time, copying was the norm. Pirated goods were everywhere. Existing colonial-era laws against it were on the books but nobody enforced them.
Singapore asked WIPO a blunt question: do a cost-benefit analysis. Why would it be better to protect intellectual property instead of copying?
WIPO’s answer was equally blunt. First, copying was already illegal under existing laws, even if those laws were outdated. Second, as Singapore moved up the production value chain and sold to developed markets, those markets would not tolerate counterfeit goods. And third, if Singapore wanted to encourage local innovation, attract high-tech foreign investment, and grow as an economy, it needed a modern intellectual property system.
Good arguments. But winning people over still took years.
Nine Years to Get One Signature
Geoffrey visited Singapore twice a year for many years. He brought colleagues and external experts. He met officials, made his case, and kept pushing.
It took nine years.
In September 1990, Singapore finally handed over its instrument of accession to the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization. This just meant Singapore officially became a member of WIPO. No obligations to actually protect intellectual property yet. Just a membership card, essentially.
But Geoffrey says the symbolic importance was huge. Singapore was now formally part of the international intellectual property community. The door was open.
Things Start Moving Fast
By the late 1980s, even before the formal membership, the signs were clear that Singapore would eventually commit to real IP protection. WIPO experts were already helping Singapore modernize its processes for registering patents, trademarks, and designs.
A key moment came in 1985. An economic restructuring committee headed by Lee Hsien Loong, who had just joined the Cabinet, produced a report that mentioned the role intellectual property protection could play in Singapore’s economic development. Shortly after, Geoffrey arranged for his senior WIPO colleagues, including the Director General, to meet with Dr. Albert Winsemius. Dr. Winsemius had been an economic advisor to the Singapore government for about 25 years. He told them he strongly supported Singapore adopting modern IP laws as an instrument of economic and technological policy.
After the 1990 membership, things accelerated. WIPO helped Singapore review its inherited British laws. Government officials debated questions with WIPO experts: What should change? What comes first? Whose laws should Singapore follow? Should Singapore create its own approach? Some WIPO experts spent weeks at a time in the country.
In 1994, Singapore passed a new patent law. Patent applications shot up immediately, both from locals and foreigners. The skeptics who said there was no innovation in Singapore were proven wrong. The new law gave people the legal incentive they needed. Soon, other laws followed for trademarks, copyright, industrial designs, and plant varieties.
Training Other Countries
By 1997, Singapore’s new patent law was working well. WIPO suggested that Singapore was ready to start training officials from other countries, especially the ASEAN neighbors.
They signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Singapore covered local costs through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Technical Cooperation Programme. WIPO paid for travel and trainers. The two sides agreed together on the programs, duration, and selection of trainees.
The arrangement worked so well that it was renewed many times and continued running at the time of writing. Several thousand people have been trained through the program.
The First WIPO Office Outside Geneva
This is where the story gets really interesting.
In 2005, WIPO opened an office in Singapore. The WIPO-Singapore Office (WSO). It was the first overseas WIPO office ever. WIPO had offices in New York and Brussels, but those were just liaison points for the UN and the European Commission. This was different. This was a full operational office.
Geoffrey led the WIPO side of the negotiations. Getting there was not easy.
First, bigger Asian countries were annoyed. They had been WIPO members longer, contributed more money, and had bigger intellectual property offices. Why should tiny Singapore get the first overseas office?
Countries in other regions were upset too. Why Asia and not their region?
Geoffrey and the Singapore side had to deploy what he calls “a panoply of diplomatic skills.” Nothing was rushed. Every concerned party was given time to have their worries addressed. Lobbying happened in Geneva and in selected capitals. In the end, they did not overreach, and the office was established.
Ten years later at the time of writing, the WSO was still going strong. It served as WIPO’s arm in the ASEAN region, supporting training, advisory work, and consulting for other countries. It also helped the private sector with international registration of patents, trademarks, and designs. Its services had recently expanded to include arbitration and mediation for intellectual property disputes.
The WIPO Director General visited Singapore every year for the Singapore Intellectual Property Week.
A Treaty Named After Singapore
If the overseas office was unprecedented, what happened next was even more so.
In 2006, WIPO held a diplomatic conference in Singapore on the Law of Trademarks. It was the first WIPO conference on intellectual property ever held in a developing country. And the first in Asia.
The conference produced a new international treaty. It was called the Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks. That was the first time an international treaty carried Singapore’s name.
Getting to host the conference was another fight. Some people at WIPO and among member states could not believe Singapore was bidding for this so soon after landing the overseas office. Even more awkward, member states had already decided just a year earlier that the conference should be held in Geneva. Singapore was asking them to change their minds.
No other country competed with Singapore for the hosting rights, which helped. But both WIPO and Singapore still had to convince member states that moving the conference would not cost the organization extra money. The budget negotiations went down to the wire, barely two months before the conference was set to begin.
Ambassador Burhan Gafoor presided over the conference. It concluded successfully with the adoption of the treaty.
The Pattern
Geoffrey Yu’s chapter covers 35 years of Singapore-WIPO relations. The pattern is the same one we see throughout this book, but stretched over a much longer timeline.
Start from nothing. Face skepticism. Do the hard work of building relationships and making the case. Get one small win. Build on it. Keep pushing. Eventually, become a leader that others look to.
In the early 1980s, people in Singapore were openly asking why they should bother with intellectual property when copying worked just fine. By 2014, the Singapore Intellectual Property Office had been designated as an International Search and Examining Authority under WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty, joining the ranks of the American, Chinese, European, and Japanese offices.
That is quite a journey for a country that took nine years just to sign the initial membership convention.
About the Author
Geoffrey Yu started his career in 1969 in the Singapore Administrative Service, working in the Ministries of Health, Social Affairs, and Foreign Affairs. As a member of the Singapore Foreign Service, he served in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and New York as deputy head of mission. He was part of the Singapore delegation to the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea. In 1981, he left to join WIPO in Geneva. Over 25 years, he rose from Senior Programme Officer for Asia and the Pacific to Deputy Director General. After retiring from WIPO in 2007, he returned to Singapore and held advisory roles at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Law, and the Singapore Intellectual Property Academy. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.
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