Patents

A patent is a right the state grants to the inventor to prevent others from exploiting the patented invention.

An inventor with an important idea or invention should protect it before he begins marketing and distributing it, to maintain exclusivity over his new invention by registering it as a patent.

The process of registering a patent begins with the filing of a patent application. The determining date (“priority date”) of the patent application is the date the application is received by the Patent Office. The application examination process takes about two to three years (or even longer). As long as the patent application is pending, the patent owner has no legal rights. This situation is called “patent pending” and allows the inventor to publicly disclose the invention for marketing and business promotion purposes.

It is important to know that any publication, even by the inventor himself, before the application is filed, affects the validity of the patent.

After the patent application has been examined by the Patent Office and approved, the patent is valid for 20 years from the date of registration of the application. The registration must be renewed periodically according to the rules of the country in which the patent was registered.

Patent registration is territorial, therefore the patent protection applies only in the countries in which it is registered. The protection in most countries includes protection against development, production, and importation of infringing products.

The right to a patent is granted to the person registered in the patent register as the patent owner, for example: the inventor, a company to which the inventor transferred his rights, or the inventor’s employer.

We emphasize: the fact that the patent owner holds a patent for a particular invention does not mean that he himself can exploit the invention. Because it is possible that someone else holds the patent required to exploit it.

For example: If you have a patent on a drinking glass. The patent allows you to prevent anyone from manufacturing glasses in Israel. If someone else improved your invention by adding a handle to your glass and receiving If he has a patent on it, he will not be able to produce cups at all, neither with a handle nor without a handle without your permission, because you have a patent on a cup. On the other hand, you will not be able to produce cups with a handle (without getting permission from him) even though you have a patent on a cup.

In which countries should you file?

It is worth filing in the target markets (where you want to sell your product), in markets that may have production sites for the product, and in markets where your potential competitors are located – even if you are not interested in selling there. The patent registration process is expensive. Therefore, it is not always possible to cover all potential countries, and you must prioritize between them. Obtaining a patent for an invention in a particular country does not require that another country also approves the patent registration for the same invention. However, registering in a particular country can make it easier to register in other countries.

There are different filing methods that you can use to save the filing date and “buy time” in which you can check in which countries you should file.

The main markets in which Israeli companies usually file are the USA, the European market and China, due to their size and being major target markets. To reduce the risks associated with operating in China and increase the chance of effective protection of intellectual property rights in China, it is advisable to treat the Chinese market and the protection of intellectual property in China with the seriousness and depth required by its being a major market for Israeli companies today.

It is important to build an informed registration and protection strategy even before entering the Chinese market and to begin the rights registration process as early as possible.

It is advisable to file the application as soon as possible in order to reach the filing date (this date is called the “determining date” and you can read about it here ) so that you get ahead of your competitors. However, it should be remembered that the patent application must describe the invention in a way that a person skilled in the field would know how to carry it out, and therefore the patent application must include details that will allow the invention to be implemented, and it is not possible to file a patent application for an idea that you do not know how to implement it, the patent application is published 18 months after filing and will be available to competitors.

A common approach is to file several patent applications in the first year and consolidate them all for the PCT phase.

Our office provides solutions in the field of patents, in every country in the world, thanks to strong connections with colleagues around the world.