CWS.ATR.PI.2012.IL

Annual Technical Report 2012 on Patent Information Activities submitted by Israel (CWS/ATR/PI/2012/IL)

Where URLs are requested below, it is preferred that either URLs which are likely to remain stable over time (three years or more) are provided, or home (main) page URLs are provided with a short explanation of how to access the corresponding information.

The term "patent" covers utility models and Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs). Offices which issue design patents should report their design patent information activities in their Annual Technical Reports on Industrial Design Information Activities.

I. Evolution of patent activities

Changes experienced in terms of application filings and grants with respect to the previous year

National applications filed:
6793 in 2012
6886 in 2011

Patents granted:
3386 in 2012
5104 in 2011

International applications filed (at RO):
967 in 2012
1060 in 2011

Trends or areas experiencing rapid changes with respect to the previous year

The number of accelerated examinations of patent applications has increased continuously.

Since June 2012, the ILPO has started operating as an International Authority (IA) for Searching and Preliminary Examination of international applications. In 2012, more than 52% of the international applications of Israeli applicants designated the ILPO as IA.

In August 2012 amendment no. 10 of the Patents Law came into force. This amendment has many implications on the operations of the ILPO and primarily with regards to the opening of Patent file-wrappers to public review as of 18 months following date of priority (until this amendment of the law file wrappers were privileged until date of acceptance). By enacting this order of transparency Israel has joined the accepted standard in this regard around the world. The review of the file wrappers is enabled at the ILPO'S website free of charge. To this end the ILPO conducted in 2012 a special project in which about 35,000 file-wrappers were scanned. Following the project, the patent department (both substantive and formality examiners) started working in a paperless environment. The Patent Formalities Department started taking charge of scanning all the incoming documents.

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide statistics related to patents

http://old.justice.gov.il/MOJEng/RashamHaptentim/AnnualReport.htm

(kindly note that a new english website will be uploaded shortly - with a new URL.)

II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, distribution and use of primary and secondary sources of patent information

Publishing, printing, copying (main types of publications of the Office in the field of patent information, etc.)

Official Gazette is published monthly on the ILPO website and contains bibliographic data of filed as well as accepted applications, granted applications ,extended applications, notices of register changes.

Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of patent information

Office Notices and Commissioner Circulars regarding changes in Office procedures are published on the ILPO website.
www.patents.gov.il

Mass storage media used (paper, microforms, optical storage, etc.)

All the electronic files of the patent applications (including bibliographic data, description, claims, drawings since 1970) and the incoming/outgoing correspondence (since 2012) are stored in the servers of the Ministry of Justice. In addition, all the documents in hard copy are still maintained in an external archive.

Word processing and office automation

Word processing and office automation

The current ILPO system was developed in the Microsoft .Net environment with Client/Server architecture using a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 database.
The ILPO patent examiners are equipped with workstations with the Windows 7 Operating System and the Windows 2008 Server. Each workstation is connected to the Citrix virtual environment and has a CD-ROM drive and Internet access through a high-speed connection. This provides patent examiners with the necessary facilities to conduct their S&E functions.
The ILPO implemented many international standards for improving efficiency, availability, flexibility, scalability and manageability of its systems.
The ILPO's Service Management implements the ITIL Standard (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) the most widely accepted approach to IT service management in the world. The ILPO adopted a disaster recovery policy and has implemented GeoCluster which protects the organization from equipment failures, power outages and natural disasters.
The ILPO's Server farm contains HP Blade servers that are managed under VMware which provides a completely virtualized set of hardware. Its website operates on a very high data security level, using several firewalls and strict security policy.

Concerning the examination of international applications, the ILPO has developed a modern and efficient automation system entitled PCT SAPIA (System for Administration and Processing of International Applications) to handle the processing of international applications electronically and to provide automatic quality checking of the formality examination at the RO stage as well as the formality and substantive examination at the ISA and IPEA stages. This system implements a full scale of automated validations and guidance for the examiner (including warnings for nonconforming cases), thus preventing him from making mistakes and ensuring integrity of the reports, and sends alerts to the division directors in cases where the due dates are not met. This system provides electronic sampling of 100% of the applications.
The business rules implemented in this system are designed to ensure the integrity and quality of the international reports produced electronically as well as work efficiency.

(New) techniques used for the generation of patent information (printing, recording, photocomposing, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), etc.)

Optical character recognition of scanned documents.

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide access to online publication of patent documents and gazettes, and to other primary and secondary sources of patent information, including patent publication servers and download of bulk patent data

http://index.justice.gov.il/Units/RashamHaptentim/Units/patent/Pages/YomanPatentimVemidgamim.aspx

III. Matters concerning abstracting, classifying, reclassifying and indexing of technical information contained in patent documents

Abstracting, reviewing, translating

The vast majority of our patent applications are in English.

Classification¹, preclassification² (if applicable), and reclassification³ activities; Classification system used, e.g., International Patent Classification (IPC), other classification (please indicate whether or not patent documents are classified by your Office and, if so, which classification is used)

- The national and international applications are classified only according to the IPC.
- The patent applications of the national phase of international applications are pre-classified according to the classification published in the international reports. The other applications are pre-classified by a classification team.
- During the substantive examination of patent applications, all the applications are re-classified by the examiner according to the last

Coordinate indexing (domestic deep indexing systems, keyword indexing)

The bibliographic data and the patent application documents (description, claims, drawings and sequences) are sent to WIPO and EPO on monthly basis in XML format.

IV. Search file establishment and upkeep

Updating

The electronic database of national applications is directly updated by the internal automation system (for internal search). The database accessed by the website is daily updated (for external search).

Documentation from other offices maintained and/or considered part of the available search file

We access most documentation from other offices by free search engines or by subscription.

V. Activities in the field of computerized and other mechanized search systems

In-house systems (online/offline)

We utilize an internal system (offline) developed in conjunction with WIPO, containing all bibliographic data of every submitted application in Israel. Note that for accepted applications full text is accessible.

External databases

THOMSON INNOVATION
Derwent World Patent Index (DWPI)
STN International databases
EPOQUE-NET
QUESTEL

Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)

The automated system for processing national applications maintains the register, legal status and administrative support management. Business Intelligence (BI) reports are also provided by the automated system to collect and analyze statistical data.

Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), carriers used

See Word processing and office automation above.

VI. Administration of the industrial property office library, and information products and services available to the public (relating to facilities, e.g., for lodging applications, for assisting clients on searching procedures, for obtaining official publications and registry extracts)

Information services available to the public (including computerized services and search files contained in libraries remote from your Office and patent information posted by your Office on the World Wide Web)

The ILPO has a bilingual web site (English & Hebrew) for the public containing all relevant patent information.

URLs of web pages of the Office's website for electronic filing of patent applications

Not yet.

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide information on business procedures such as: filing, publication, examination and grant procedures related to patents; opposition and appeal procedures related to patents; etc.

http://www.ilpatsearch.justice.gov.il/UI/MainPage.aspx

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide a description of information products and services offered by the Office (e.g., patent search service(s) and patent databases), as well as information on how to access and utilize them

http://www.ilpatsearch.justice.gov.il/UI/MainPage.aspx

VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of patent documentation and information

International or regional cooperation in the exchange of machine-readable information, e.g., bibliographic data, abstract and/or full text information

The ILPO provides bibliographic data of patent applications, as well as full text data of accepted applications to WIPO (which contains the Israel national patent collection) and EPO.

Medium used for exchange of priority documents

Priority documents are sent to WIPO in hard copy.

VIII. Other relevant matters concerning education and training in, and promotion of, the use of patent information, including technical assistance to developing countries (please indicate URLs of web pages of the Office’s website wherever appropriate)

Training courses for national and foreign participants, use of audiovisual means

The ILPO periodically provides training courses for patent, trademarks and PCT receiving office staff, as well as for the public. These training courses and seminars are on the topics of (but not limited to) search databases, international classification, international search and examination, the Madrid protocol and advanced knowledge of the PCT. All training courses and seminars utilized PowerPoint presentations, whereas some, such as the international search and examination seminar, included written exercises. Some of the training courses were held in conjunction with WIPO, local patent attorneys, academic institutions and additional government offices, such as the WIPO Workshop on Effective Intellectual Property Asset Management by Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) held June 29-30 in Tel Aviv, and a seminar on Intellectual Property law and development – the road ahead; Traditional Knowledge and access to knowledge.

Assistance to developing countries (sending consultants and experts, receiving trainees from developing countries, etc.)

In 2012, the ILPO organized a week training course in the field of pharmaceutics and chemistry in conjunction with the WIPO worldwide training academy. This course constitutes the practical part of the interregional intermediate seminar on industrial property, preceded by the first part of this seminar, which takes place at the WIPO worldwide training academy in Geneva. This course provides training to trainees from developing countries regarding the Israeli intellectual property laws, as well as legal and professional issues arising while registering intellectual property rights in Israel. The interns also learn about the organizational structure of the ILPO and its various departments: Patents, PCT, Patent Formalities and the Legal department.

Promotional activities (seminars, exhibitions, visits, advertising, etc.)

The ILPO holds different seminars on IP matters intended for attorneys at law and patent attorneys.
In 2012 the following seminars were held:
- The Madrid Protocol
- International Searching Authority and International Preliminary Examination Authority
- PPH
- Economic Aspects of IPR

Assistance furnished by offices to facilitate the changing over of receiving offices to electronic data carriers for the exchange of patent documents (see also fourth sub-item of item VI, above)

The ILPO provides bibliographic data of patent applications, as well as full text data of accepted applications to WIPO (which contains the Israel national patent collection) and the EPO.

IX. Other general information related to the Office that is available on the Internet -- URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that:

provide information on legislation related to patents

Yes (in Hebrew only): www.patents.gov.il

contain the Annual Report of the Office