Singapore Consults on AI and IP: Training Data, AI Outputs and Inventorship

By Dafa Attas

Photo: blickpixel / Pixabay

Singapore is asking how its intellectual property laws should deal with artificial intelligence, and the window to respond closes soon. The Ministry of Law (MinLaw) and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) opened a public consultation on 26 August 2026. Feedback is due by 5 pm on 22 October 2026.

The copyright part covers three areas. The first is AI training. Singapore's copyright law already contains a computational data analysis exception, introduced in 2021 according to The Brand Protection Blog, and the consultation asks whether its scope and application are clear enough, how the lawful access requirement and safeguards for rights owners should work in practice, and how the government could support non-binding technical measures led by industry. The second is risk in AI deployment: how existing principles apply when AI output infringes copyright, how responsibility should be shared among developers, deployers and end users, and which technical measures could reduce output infringement in a proportionate and commercially workable way. The third is human creativity in AI-assisted works, meaning how human contribution should be understood, recognised and evidenced when generative AI is used as a tool.

The patent part has two strands. One asks how existing inventorship principles apply across the range of human and AI interaction in the inventive process, including problem formulation, selection among AI-generated outputs and human modification of AI-generated solutions. The other looks at the large-scale publication of AI-generated technical disclosures and how this could affect prior art, patent searches, examination and incentives to innovate. A commentary on The Brand Protection Blog notes that the consultation centres on AI-assisted inventions rather than fully autonomous AI inventors.

Responses can be sent through separate online forms for copyright and patents, or by email to MinLaw. MinLaw says it may publish submissions and the identity of respondents, and that confidential material should be marked and placed in a separate annex.

The outcome will matter to any company that trains models in Singapore or files patents there for AI-assisted work. Businesses with a view on how training data, AI output liability or AI-assisted inventorship should be handled have until 22 October to put it on record.

Sources

• Ministry of Law, Singapore, "Public Consultation on Artificial Intelligence and Singapore's Intellectual Property Regime" (26 August 2026)
• The Brand Protection Blog, "The Future of IP in Singapore in the Age of AI" (5 October 2026)
• CMS, "Singapore launches Public Consultation on AI and Intellectual Property"