While being a relatively-small country, Israel produces a significant amount of innovation, ranking in the top tier of most technology-related benchmarks. For example, Israel has the highest number of university degrees per capita worldwide, and has the most scientists and technicians per capita in the world. Over 25 percent of the Israeli workforce is employed in technical professions. Furthermore, Israel has ranked first for business expenditure on R&D, second for venture-capital availability, and third in the world in per capita patents.
Known as the “start-up nation,” Israel has been able to make major contributions to society in a vast array of technologies including: agriculture, solar power, water technologies, pharmaceuticals, biotech, medical devices, Internet, software, microchips, and telecom, just to name a few.
Like many evolving patent regimes, the Israel Patent Office (ILPO, also referred to as the Israel Patent Authority (IPA)) has largely amalgamated its code of law from the tenets of the major established patent systems (such as the EPO and USPTO), while also incorporating unique doctrines that differ from other patent regimes (such as with their splitting of medical treatments and diagnostics as patentable subject matter). IL patent applications can be submitted in English, Hebrew, or Arabic, with the vast majority being submitted in English for practical reasons.
The body of Israeli rules and laws with regard to patents enables inventors to secure patent protection in Israel, and to use such applications as the basis for filing priority-based applications under the guidelines of the Paris Convention and the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Among other aspects, the ILPO includes an opposition procedure in its patent-prosecution process which is akin to the process in the EPO. As of June 2012, the ILPO also serves as an International Search Authority (ISA) for the examination of PCT applications.
While a provisional patent application affords the inventor/entrepreneur certain advantages such as reduced upfront filing costs, as well as time to perfect an invention and seek investors during the priority year, the provisional filing process also has an inherent disadvantage that can be significant to some in that it can extend the time it will take to acquire enforceable intellectual-property rights.
Two of the ILPO’s procedural guidelines for patent prosecution are worth highlighting here. The first guideline relates to accelerated examination. In recent years, the ILPO has streamlined its accelerated-examination protocol, creating a “fast-track” examination process for a nominal fee without the necessity to provide justification for acceleration. This can be of great benefit to entrepreneurs with impending product launches who want to secure patent protection as quickly as possible so that their inventions are protected when they enter the market. This can be especially advantageous in technical areas in which the invention can be easily appropriated, such as simple mechanical gadgets.
The second guideline relates to inventions that have received a patent allowance or grant in another jurisdiction. Israeli patent law stipulates under Section 17(c) that an Examiner can rely on the parallel prosecution of a patent in other countries, particularly in: Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, the European Patent Office, Germany, Japan, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This means that, in prosecuting an Israeli patent application, if one receives an allowance or grant in any of the jurisdictions mentioned above, one need only meet certain formalities to receive a patent grant before the ILPO, circumventing a costly and time-consuming de novo prosecution process.
FlashPoint IP factors these wide-ranging aspects into the process of securing patent protection, whether in searching the prior art, drafting patent applications, selecting how and where to file, or prosecuting your claims to an invention to help you maximize value in an extensive array of practice areas. Our patent attorneys are licensed to represent clients directly before the ILPO, and are adept at synthesizing the many facets needed to create a winning formula for your IP. Contact us to discuss your options regarding IP positioning and strategy, and how best to secure your rights.
