84 / 114
84 The US-Israel Legal Review 2019
ISRAEL: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
concerning limitations on the filing by its citizens
and residents of inventions relating to national
security and nuclear energy. In the past, such
limitations bottlenecked the examination process
in a large part of local patent prosecutions.
Reportedly, the exercise of such limitations has
substantively decreased in recent years by way
of effective cooperation between the ILPO and
the Ministry of defense. Special efforts have been
made to streamline the screening process on both
local as well as PCT applications made by Israeli
citizens and residents. Such a streamlining is
another indication of the importance the regulative
environment in Israel attributes to the effective
obtainment of legal protection to IP rights.
The Israel Patent Law provides employers with
full property rights in service inventions which
are the product of an employment relationship
whereby the invention is a direct result of and is
made during the employment relationship. Unless
agreed otherwise, the law sets aside a monetary
right to the employee to be duly compensated for
such ‘automatic’ attribution of property right to
employer. Unless agreed otherwise, such matters
are heard before a unique committee having
sole authority to set the rate of severance and
royalties for the appropriation of the invention.
In a 2014 decision, the committee made it
clear that the said monetary rights attributed
to employee, may be contracted out. In later
decisions the committee regarded additional,
until then unresolved, other matters providing
the stakeholders with a higher rate of certainty.
DESIGN
2018 saw a dramatic change to the legal protection
of design rights in Israel. In August 2018 the new
Design Law came into force replacing a British
Mandate ordinance from 1924 (which will remain
in force with regards to designs applied for before
the new law). This modern legislation has adopted
terms and criteria used in the European Union
Directive on design and intends to rely, for the sake
of interpretation, on European and specifically
United Kingdom jurisprudence in the field. Similar
to the EU Registered Community Design Right and
the Unregistered Community Design Right, the
new Israel Design Law provides for a registered
and an unregistered right. The term of protection
of a registered design right is 25 years whereas
unregistered rights last for 3 years from date of
first publication and provide relatively limited
protection. The new law requires the design to
be globally novel and have individual character
as per the impression of an informed user. The
new law will enable providing protection also for
design of graphic user interfaces, icons and digital
screen images which under the ordinance were
not clearly protectable. The new law will enable
Israel to join the Hague Agreement, thus providing
Israeli users the benefit of the easy access to the
International design system as well as direct entry
by international stakeholders into the Israeli design
market (anticipated for early 2020).
On the administrative level it is well worth
noting that since early 2017 the designs ledger is
being published online and that full digital filing
and prosecution capabilities were launched. These
tools have increased the transparency of the design
examination process which has been considerably
shortened and improved.
TRADEMARKS
The Trademarks Ordinance was substantially
revised in 1972. Several amendments were made
since. One of the main amendments was made in
1999 to conform with the TRIPs Agreement.
Frequent litigation before the courts and
active customs enforcement have brought to
effective jurisprudence granting trademark rights
considerable value in the local marketplace.
As of October 2010 Israel started operating
under
the
Madrid
Protocol
concerning
2018 saw a dramatic change
to the legal protection of
design rights in Israel. In
August 2018 the new Design
Law came into force.