Stamp Duty for Transfer or Assignment of Intellectual Property

I was just looking through the Stamp Act 1949 (Act 378), which you can download by clicking here.

Under section 35, “The instruments appearing under the heading of “General Exemptions” in the First Schedule shall not be chargeable with duty.” This looks promising and I had a look.

Unfortunately, the words “intellectual property” never appear under the General Exemptions.

Then I kept reading. Under Item 32, which is related to “Conveyance, Assignment, Transfer or Absolute Bill of Sale”, there appears under the Exemptions:

“(d) Transfer or assignment on sale of any copyright, trade mark, patent or any similar right.”

That means that transfers, and assignments (pursuant to sale) of copyrights, trade marks, patents and “other similar rights”, which are generally known as “intellectual property rights (IPR)” would be exempted from stamp duty. At least, that’s how it looks like to me.

Incidentally, our Intellectual Property Corporation is pushing (and has established) a marketplace for various intellectual property. To visit the marketplace (called IPR Marketplace) please click the following link:

It stands to reason that if you, being an interested buyer or seller of intellectual property rights, happen to sell and transfer or assign your copyrights, trade marks, patents, and such other IPR’s, you’ll save on stamp duty.