The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) has granted its first accelerated patent under its new FinTech Fast Track initiative to Voyager Innovations, a technology company based in Southeast Asia. While patent grants typically take at least two to four years, and in some cases even longer, the FinTech Fast Track initiative allows Voyager to obtain grant in seven months.
This new FinTech Fast Track initiative comes at no additional cost and is open to any FinTech company who files through IPOS. The objective of this initiative is to support the growth of FinTech innovations in Singapore, as well as to enable businesses to market and commercialise their technology more rapidly in view of the shorter lifecycle of a FinTech product or service.
FinTech refers to technology applied in financial-related services or used to help companies manage the financial aspects of their businesses. According to an announcement from IPOS, some examples of FinTech-related inventions include (i) electronic payment, (ii) investment platforms, (iii) insurance technology, (iv) blockchain and banking, (v) security, (vi) fraud and authentication.
FinTech inventions could also involve alternative due diligence, virtual exchanges and smart contracts, as well as market information platforms. FinTech inventions typically utilize enabling technologies, such as data analytics, Internet-of-Things (IOT), mobile platforms, cloud computing, artificial intelligence/machine learning and cryptocurrency, in order to improve the provision of financial services.
The patented invention of Voyager is based on a distributed ledger technology which allows uses at an onsite or offsite live event to participate in real-time activities through an application. Various data such as event-specific location data, event-defined behaviours and users’ movement and position of their mobile devices are used in this patented invention.
FinTech companies that are looking to patent their inventions should consider utilising this new FTFT initiative for an expedited application-to-grant route in order to help market and commercialise their products and services more rapidly. If you have any questions regarding this new FTFT initiative, please feel free to contact us.