As enacted

Commentary · As enacted

Public consultation on AI and Singapore’s intellectual property regime

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DISCLAIMER: This update is intended for your general information only. It is not intended to be, nor should it be, regarded as or relied upon as legal advice. Court decisions referred to herein may be subject to further appeal at the time of publication, and subsequent developments in the law, including new legislation, amendments, court decisions or practice directions, may affect the accuracy or relevance of the matters discussed. We are under no duty to update this publication to reflect any such changes in the law. You should consult a qualified legal professional before taking any action or omitting to take action in relation to matters discussed herein.

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Public Consultation on AI and Singapore’s

Intellectual Property Regime

On 26 August 2026, the Ministry of Law (MinLaw) and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore

(IPOS) launched a public consultation to seek feedback on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on

Singapore’s intellectual property (IP) regime. The consultation closes on 22 October 2026.

In its press release, MinLaw noted that the increasing worldwide use of AI to create content, support research and innovation, and assist decision-making raises important questions about IP laws and frameworks. Singapore’s IP regime balances the protection of rights and incentives that support human creativity and investment, while enabling innovation for the public good. As AI advances, those laws and frameworks must remain fit for purpose, trusted and responsive to emerging developments.

MinLaw and IPOS have taken a co-creation approach to these issues, engaging with rights holders, technology companies, representatives from the creative industries, legal practitioners, academics, and other stakeholders. Those engagements informed the public consultation paper (Consultation Paper).

The consultation now seeks broader views and perspectives from interested parties.

The consultation covers AI-related issues in Singapore’s copyright and patent regimes. It invites feedback on whether the proposed legal refinements, practical information resources and non-binding technical measures can enhance certainty, accountability and confidence in the regimes.

As regards copyright, the consultation focuses on three broad areas: (a) how to foster greater certainty and accountability in AI training; (b) copyright risk management in AI deployment and use; and (c) the nature of human creativity in AI-assisted works.

Each is discussed below.

How to foster greater certainty and accountability in AI training

This area considers whether the scope and applications of the computational data analysis (CDA)

exception are sufficiently clear, how lawful access and rights-owner safeguards should operate in practice, and how the Government can support non-legally binding technical measures in a practical and industry-led way.

The Consultation Paper highlights that the CDA exception under the Copyright Act 2021 is central to

Singapore’s approach. It balances innovation and protection by allowing copyright works to be used for such purposes, subject to stringent safeguards to protect rights owners’ interests.

Artificial Intelligence | Copyright | Patents

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The exception is expressly intended to apply to machine learning for all types of technologies, including generative AI, consistent with its technology-neutral design. Its purpose-based limitation focuses on the training phase and does not cover the eventual use of the AI model being trained. The exception is also agnostic as to whether copyright works are used in commercial or non-commercial contexts, so commercial CDA activities can benefit from it.

On lawful access, users cannot rely on the exception if they unlawfully access copyright works for AI training purposes. This includes breaching a database’s terms of use or circumventing a paywall or other access control measure. In special cases, users can lawfully access copyright works for AI training despite such measures, namely, where contract terms are unenforceable or where technical measures are non-legally binding. Technical safeguards for AI should remain non-legally binding because technology and industry practices evolve faster than legislation can sensibly prescribe them.

This area considers how existing legal principles should apply when AI-generated output infringes copyright, how responsibility should be assessed among AI developers, deployers and end users, and what technical measures may help minimise output infringement risks in a proportionate and commercially viable way.

The Consultation Paper notes that, depending on the facts, an AI developer, AI deployer and/or end user (i.e., the prompter) may be liable for unauthorised reproduction, unauthorised communication to the public, or authorising infringement. Insofar as the output only reproduces the general style of a work, there will be no infringement. Copyright law protects the particular expression embodied in the work and not its underlying ideas, facts or stylistic elements.

Singapore does not mandate binding technical measures that target the generation of infringing output.

It instead encourages responsible, ethical and trusted AI development, deployment and use through resources such as IPOS’s AI Output Infringement Explainer.

The nature of human creativity in AI-assisted works

This area focuses on how human contribution should be understood, recognised and evidenced where generative AI is used as a tool in creative and business workflows.

The Consultation Paper highlights that Singapore’s copyright legislation and courts have held steadfast to the requirement for human authorship for works to receive copyright protection. A work created with

AI’s involvement is only protected by copyright if it is made by a human and is an authorial creation that is causally connected with the engagement of the human intellect. The courts will assess whether the human acts and decisions in the creative process demonstrate sufficient intellectual effort and whether they are sufficiently reflected in the final work to justify copyright protection.

The question is thus how to achieve greater clarity and predictability in differentiating between protectable AI-assisted works and unprotectable AI-generated content, especially at the margins. Areas in which human creative contribution may be found include pre-generation acts and decisions by the prompter, post-generation selection and arrangement of AI output, and post-generation editing.

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Patents

The Consultation Paper notes that the patent issues are at an earlier stage of policy development than the copyright issues. Here, the consultation focuses on two broad areas: (a) how existing inventorship principles should apply across the spectrum of human-AI interactions in the inventive process; and (b) how the large-scale publication of AI-generated technical disclosures may affect the prior art landscape.

Both are discussed below.

How existing inventorship principles should apply across the spectrum of human-AI interactions in the inventive process

Under the Patents Act 1994, only a human being who is the actual deviser of the invention can be named as an inventor. It is accepted law that contribution to the inventive concept may take different forms and that the assessment is heavily fact-dependent. That assessment becomes more complex when AI is involved in generating, evaluating or refining the technical solution.

The Consultation Paper highlights that the approach taken may have practical implications for R&D planning, investment decisions and IP management strategies. These include redesigned R&D processes incorporating explicit human-in-the-loop involvement and increased documentation requirements. Four hypothetical scenarios based on the stages of an AI-assisted drug discovery workflow are set out in the Consultation Paper.

How the large-scale publication of AI-generated technical disclosures may affect the prior art landscape

This area considers issues pertaining to patent searches, examination, patentability assessments and incentives for innovation as AI-generated material becomes more publicly available.

The Consultation Paper notes that, in Singapore, the requirements of novelty and inventive step are assessed against the state of the art, which generally comprises everything made available to the public before the priority date of the invention. Generative AI can produce technical descriptions at scale and speed. This may increase the volume of publicly available disclosures and affect later patent searches, applications and assessments of patentability. Practical considerations identified include the quality and reliability of AI-generated content, enablement, and the prior art search burden.

Responding to the Consultation

Each of the areas above is accompanied by specific questions in the Consultation Paper, and parties considering making a submission should review them in full.

In relation to patents, MinLaw and IPOS also welcome views on whether there are specific areas where divergence is seen in the approaches between jurisdictions and the impact on your organisation, and whether there are any other aspects of the relationship between AI and the patent system that should be examined.

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Partnerships Act 2005.

Interested parties are invited to submit their views by 5 pm on 22 October 2026 via either of the following:

(a)

FormSG for (i) copyright-related feedback here, and (ii) patents-related feedback here; or

(b)

E-mail to MinLaw at MLAW_Consultation@mlaw.gov.sg.

If you would like information and/or assistance on the above or any other area of law, you may wish to contact the Partner at WongPartnership whom you normally work with or any of the following Partners:

LAM Chung Nian

Head – Intellectual Property,

Technology & Data

Kylie PEH

Partner – Intellectual Property,

Technology & Data

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