BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Israel is a member of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) from June 1, 1996. The Israeli PCT Division launched operations ten years ago with just 4 staff members. Currently Israeli PCT Division has 8 employees.
Main Activities of the PCT Division
· acting as a receiving Office for the filing and processing of international applications according to the procedures provided by the Patent Cooperation Treaty
· acting as national phase entries formal examination division
· granting of extensions of term for:
(i) for filing a patent application with priority claim;
(ii) adding a priority claim;
(iii) entering the national phase
(iv) restoration of priority rights
Activities of the PCT Division
· providing information, advice and assistance to the PCT applicants and their agents in connection with PCT applications;
· provides instructions to patent examiners at the Israel Patent Office concerning the PCT System;
· resolves legal issues relating to the PCT applications which arise in international and national phase;
· preparing and updating of informative material on PCT;
· maintains the PCT customers mailing list to notify of any updates and statistics;
· provides daily information and assistance on the PCT procedures to the public.
Developments in 2007.
International Phase
Israeli applicants have placed among the 15 main users of the PCT
in 2006, followed by those of Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Spain, Norway, Russian Federation etc. This system allows an applicant to seek patent protection in 138 member States of the PCT.
The Israeli PCT Division received in 2007 1635 international applications, which 122 (8.1 %) more than in 2006. Our 1635 international applications in 2007 constitute ~1.3 % of the world PCT applications. The number of international applications filed with the ILPO as Receiving Office (RO) was more then foreseen and higher than in all previous years. Since 2000, the number of international applications from Israel has risen by ~ 87%.
The Israeli Patent Office placed among the top 13 PCT Receiving Offices in the world.
Since the beginning of its operation in 1996, the PCT Office has received and processed more than 12,000 international applications. There was appreciable growth of the international applications in high-tech fields (biotechnology, genetic engineering, electronic & telecommunication etc.).
In July 1999 the Israel PCT Office started processing of the international applications, using PCT-EASY software. The PCT-SAFE (EASY mode) software remained the most popular electronic means for filing international applications.
Of those 1635 filed international applications, 1549 (95%) were filed using PCT-SAFE EASY mode software (bibliographic data and abstract in electronic form on diskette).
The number of international applications sent to each International Searching Authority is indicated below:
International Searching Authority Number of applications
European Patent Office 671 (41%)
US Patent Office 964 (59%)
The average processing time for international applications was ~ 1-2 weeks. Consequently, in all PCT cases the time limits had been met.
National Phase
PCT applications entering the national phase constitute more than two thirds (79%) of all patent applications filed in Israel.
The number of yearly national phase entries:
1997 - 540
1998 - 2660
1999 - 3700
2000 - 4390
2001 - 4780
2002 - 4640
2003 - 4360
2004 - 4777
2005 - 5290
2006 - 5795
2007 - 6336
Developments in PCT Automation.
In 2007 Israel PCT division continued to upgrade the automation infrastructure and internal processing system. The key aims were computer system stability and reliability, and to that end performance monitoring and PCT processing management have been improved.
Today PCT division is supported by effective automation system that has been upgraded to a Windows XP based environment using the SQL 2000 Server.
PCT- SAFE. In order to encourage applicants to use PCT-SAFE Software the Israel PCT Division carried out the following activities:
n provision of PCT-SAFE related information to inventors, industry, patent attorneys and other interested parties;
n distribution CD-ROM’s with PCT-SAFE Software to all interested parties;
n specialized presentation of the PCT-SAFE Software by PCT Office staff.
In 2007 the Israeli PCT Division continued notify on monthly basis the WIPO of the PCT applications which have entered the national phase in Israel (in electronic XML format).
In 2006 our internal Patent system has been also directly connected to the WIPO's Global Patent Scope system and we started to work with this system on daily basis. The algorithm for such connection was kindly provided by the WIPO.
Benefits from the direct online access to the various PCT documents regarding the specific applications, which entered the national phase in Israel:
- reduction of effort in COR ordering;
- elimination of the manual upload of COR DVD's and CD's;
- access to WIPO's most recent available publication records;
- improvement in comfort of document inspection for ILPO examiners.
Integrating into the Patent Scope on-line file inspection system would allow reduce considerably the time required between an order for and the receipt of documents by our Office. This system allows us to check on-line the status of the documents for the international applications, which entered the national phase and would also allow us to move towards a paperless environment.
International Cooperation
In 2007 Israeli PCT Division started participate in the DAS project - digital access service for priority documents.
The new service would offer possibility for more streamlined handling of priority documents for the benefit of both Patent Offices and applicants, with considerable savings of financial and other resources, similar to the possibilities available in case of priority documents filed in connection with international applications under the PCT.