Sanford T. Colb & Co.

The Israel Patent Office has announced its intention to launch an Israeli version of ‘provisional’ patent applications. At present, the Patent Office is soliciting input from Israeli patent practitioners, and from entities in Israeli industry, academia and government. Later this month and throughout July, the Patent Office will hold in-depth meetings, which will be open to the public, to further discuss how the ‘provisional’ system will be implemented. Further updates to follow!

The STC firm applauds the courage and dedication of longtime STC patent attorney, Dr. Moshe Greenberger, whose parallel career as a physician has placed him on the frontlines of Covid-19 patient care in a Jerusalem hospital. His clients, colleagues, family and patients benefit from his multifaceted expertise and his humanity. We are so proud of him.

The Israel Patent Office has updated its policy regarding double patenting. In accordance with the new Patent Examination Guidelines that went into effect on February 10, 2020, claims of an examined application will be rejected for double patenting over another application or patent of the same Applicant having the same priority date only if the scope of the claims of the examined application and the scope of the claims of the other application or patent are identical. The new policy applies both to applications originating from the same application, such as a parent and a divisional, and to separate applications that were filed on the same day. The new policy is retroactive. Accordingly, claims that stand rejected over another application or patent of the same Applicant having the same priority date due to partially overlapping subject matter are now considered not to overlap, and it is not necessary to respond to the rejection of those claims based on double patenting.