SingPost has refuted allegations that it plagiarised the design of a smart letterbox by a student project team from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).

The national postal company recently unveiled a smart letterbox prototype, which is able to sort and allocate mail for households before sending an alert to residents.

Residents can retrieve their mail by scanning their EZ-Link card or scanning a Quick Response (QR) code.

Accused of plagiarism

However, it appears SingPost's prototype bears much resemblance to the work of an SUTD project team led by Jerry Neo Theng Tat.

The SUTD undergraduate wrote on LinkedIn that the postal company took the idea from his school project, which sought to improved postal service efficiency by automating the last-mile delivery of letters ad unregistered packages: "I was fine when the news came out and they did not credit us. I told my team that we have proven ourselves as innovators. But when I saw CNA's news that they claimed to be world's first... oh boy.."

"This is precisely why Singaporeans are risk averse and not willing to venture," Neo wrote.

"This is exactly why the local startup scene is not blooming."

Neo's post was accompanied by a photo that showed his team presenting their prototype to the vice president of SingPost in April, 2019:

Neo also posted screen shots of a WhatsApp conversation with a Mr Ngiam from SingPost, asking if the company would like to jointly develop the prototype further with the team.

In response, Ngiam said that SingPost had started their design and work.

He also said that he did not think that they will be working on a joint project as they had different requirements.

SingPost: Marked differences between both prototypes

In response to Mothership queries, a SingPost spokesperson denied Neo's allegations, claiming that the company started developing an automated letterbox in January 2019, a month before Neo's team approached them.

SingPost had informed the students that they were working on a similar project but could not disclose more because of a non-disclosure agreement with the prototype vendor.

The SingPost spokesperson also pointed out several design and operational differences between both prototypes, including:

1. Sortation and storage process which does not use a mechanical arm
2. Incorporation of tracking capabilities with the data matrix
3. Fail-safe put-to-light mechanism
4. Ability to deliver multiple letters to the same storage unit simultaneously.

"SingPost would like to emphasise that Mr Neo’s design was never used in our iteration process or shared with our prototype vendor," said the spokesperson.

"The postal engineering staff whom Mr Neo’s group consulted was also not involved in the designing of the smart letterbox. In fact, despite exchanges over text, SingPost did not receive nor do we possess Mr Neo’s designs."

The spokesperson added that the company will be meeting the students and their professors on Sep. 27 to clear the matter.