Raising IP awareness in the young generation in Singapore

The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) and the National Youth Council (NYC) have recently conducted a joint survey called the Singapore IP and Youth survey to obtain a general understanding of how the young generation in Singapore perceives Intellectual Property and all the matters related. Through the survey, it’s clear that we need to raise IP awareness in the young generation in Singapore.

Although Singapore is one of the fastest developing countries in the entire world, the young generation – the foundation of Singapore in the future may need to have a special initiative to educate them about the importance of Intellectual Property – another foundation of society. 

The Singapore IP and Youth survey 

The Singapore IP and Youth survey had 1,000 respondents aged 16 – 34. The survey was conducted beforehand but was unveiled on April 26, 2022, at an event celebrating World IP Day in Singapore.

The data in the Singapore IP and Youth survey are:

• 70% of youths in Singapore know about intellectual property. 
• 85% of youths indicated their familiarity with copyright. 
• 84% of youths indicated their familiarity with trademarks (ranking second)  
• 73% of youths indicated their familiarity with patents (ranking third). 

Despite the high indication, the general awareness of IP among the young generations in Singapore is still low.

When asked about matters that are a little bit more complicated, the knowledge of the participants quickly lowered to around 20% when probed further. 

For the more ‘special’ kind of IP, there are only 17% of youths can identify 3 types of IP that are industrial designs, trade secrets, and geographical indications (GIs).

In addition, the survey also showed that 67% of the participants were content creators. 

Among these:

• 43% created content for social media
• 24% created artistic works
• 23% developed content for branding.

On the other hand, 67% have not protected the content they created for the following reasons:

• They believe their content wasn’t worth enough to invest to protect.
• They don’t believe IP is relevant to their content.
• Lack of knowledge about how to protect their IP assets.

Strangely, 66% of participants in this matter said that they were not aware of how to protect the content they develop. Furthermore, 56% indicated they do not know where to find information about IP. This is extremely bizarre considering Singapore is one of the most developing countries in the Southeast Asia region with overwhelming content on the Internet.

However, although they aren’t aware of IP, the survey has shown that there are many who have seen and observed IP in their everyday life without acknowledging them as a matter of Intellectual Property, such as in the action of crediting images used to owners, legally streaming and downloading music and purchasing authentic goods.

Expert opinions

Through the survey, the youth has shown their support and eagerness to learn about IP matters. Therefore, half of them has proposed the government establish more education program and spread IP awareness to the young generations in Singapore more. 

On this matter, Alvin Tan, Minister of State, Ministry of culture, community, and youth & ministry of trade and industry declared: “We are committed to supporting our youth in their innovation journey by providing an enabling environment for them to innovate, create and build a better Singapore. I encourage all young creators and entrepreneurs to take advantage of the government schemes and community support available to grow and commercialize your ideas into successful startups and businesses.”

Tan also expressed his positive view on the celebration of World IP Day which also featured a youth panel discussion-themed “Innovating for a Better Future.”

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– You could visit here to see Procedure of Singapore Trademark Registration.

– You could visit here to check the required documents for filing trademark in Singapore

– You can also check the Fee of Trademark In Singapore here.

–  You could check how to register trademark in Singapore here.

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