Dr. Ting Choon Meng, local inventor and entrepreneur who was embroiled in the patent case between his company, MobileStats Technologies Pte Ltd and Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) speaks out against comments posted on TOC’s comment thread about his letter from MINDEF/Attorney General’s Chamber.

Read here for the affidavit submitted by Dr. Ting.

I have read enough of Joe Tan’s posting and I have to stand up to clarify. You have absolutely no idea what has been invented. To compare it with the field hospital is pathetic.

Field hospitals are situated far away from the front line of disaster and take at least half a day to set up. With a long chain of convoy.

What the SWIFT vehicle has done is to bring the whole Accident & Emergency (A&E) to the site of disaster.

Within 5 minutes, with a press of a button, it transforms itself to an 8 bedded Emergency Room (ER) that can handle up to 240 patients a day.

The key word is speed because time equals life in the frontline.

What it does is that it changes the whole doctrine of rescue whereby countries even up to now uses the scoop and run method. Ambulance just take and bring the casualties to hospital.

Many died because they were not properly triage and not stabilised. Bleeding was not stopped and air way was not made patent. Etc…

The vehicle allows the ER to be organised into 3 different sections to treat and stablise the light, medium and severe ones. And even dead ones.

After the initial stablisation the priority of evacuation is then assigned and to the appropriate hospitals. E.g. burns victims to burn unit and the head injury to neurosurgical hospitals.

The vehicle also packs up in less than 5 mins with a press of the buttons.

In fact the impact of the invention is so significant that a new doctrine and manual has been developed for mass casualty disaster by Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF). And NSMEN were trained on that doctrine.

We even had the Commander of USA army come over to view the vehicle. Brought by Singapore Technologies. And they respected the Intellectual Property and not go ahead until a licensed vendor is appointed.

Perhaps the best point to remember is this: If the vehicle is not a new invention, why would the army organise a huge publicity event and announce to the world that THIS IS THEIR INVENTION AND INNOVATION. The news was carried in all mainstream media and Channel News Asia.

And now they (and you) can claim that it is not inventive.

And the terms of settlement demanded by them, amongst other things is that we assign all the patent rights in all the other countries to them. Not to revoke but to assign! !!

Why do you need that If in the first place you claim that patent is not valid and strong?

I am asking for your conscience. I stood up even though I know it’s David vs Goliath case.

But I chose to stood up so that this will stop the gahmen from doing it to another fellow son of Singapore. And you very well could be the next one. PERIOD