- CHAPTER ONE: DEFINITIONS
- CHAPTER TWO: PATENTABILITY
- CHAPTER THREE: PROCEDURE OF GRANTING PATENT
- CHAPTER THREE "A": INTERNATIONAL APPLICATIONS
- CHAPTER FOUR: THE PATENT, ITS MODIFICATIONAND CANCELLATION
- Article One: Rights That Derive from a Patent
- Article Two: Effect is Conditional on Payment of Fees
- Article Two "A": Extension of Period of Protection
- Article Three: Amendment of Patent
- Article Four: Cancellation or Revocation of Patenton Patent Holder's Application
- Article Five: Cancellation of Patent on Applicationby Person Who is Not the Patent Holder
- CHAPTER FIVE: OWNERSHIP OF PATENTS
- CHAPTER SIX: POWERS OF THE STATE
- CHAPTER SEVEN: RESTRICTION OR CANCELLATIONOF PATENT HOLDER'S RIGHTS IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
- CHAPTER EIGHT: SERVICE INVENTIONS
- CHAPTER NINE: PATENT ATTORNEYS
- CHAPTER TEN: OFFICE AND REGISTRAR
- CHAPTER ELEVEN: PATENT INFRINGEMENT
- CHAPTER TWELVE: JURISDICTION AND PENALTIES
- CHAPTER THIRTEEN: IMPLEMENTATION AND REGULATIONS
- CHAPTER FOURTEEN: EFFECT AND TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS
- SCHEDULE ONE
- SCHEDULE TWO
PATENTS LAW 5727-1967 as amended [unofficial translation]
In case of discrepancies, the Hebrew version shall prevail
CHAPTER ONE: DEFINITIONS
Definitions
1. In this Law –
"WTO" – the World Trade Organization established by the agreement signed at Marakesh on April 15, 1994;
"examiner" – a person appointed under Law to be a Patent Examiner or a Chief Examiner or the Superintendent of Examiners;
"owner of an invention" – the inventor himself or persons who derive title under him, being entitled to the invention by operation of Law, by transfer or by agreement;
"patent holder" – the person registered in the Register as the person to whom a patent was granted or to whom ownership of a patent has passed;
"Office" – the Patent Office said in Chapter Ten;
"Convention State" – a Member State of the Union for the Protection of Industrial Property, by virtue of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, or a group of Convention States who maintain a joint system for the submission of patent applications, including territories to which the Convention was made applicable by virtue of powers granted for this purpose by the Convention;
"Member State" – a Convention State or a state that is a member of the WTO;
"exploitation of an invention" –
(1) in respect of an invention that is a product – any act that is one of the following: production, use, offer for sale, sale, or import for purposes of one of the said acts;
(2) in respect of an invention that is a process – use of the process, and in respect of a product directly derived from the process – any act that is one of the following: production, use, offer for sale, sale, or import for purposes of one of the said acts;
but exclusive of any of the following:
(1) an act that is not on a commercial scale and is not commercial in character;
(2) an experimental act in connection with the invention, the objective of which is to improve the invention or to develop another invention;
(3) an act performed under the provisions of section 54A.
"patent attorney" – a person registered in the Register of Patent Attorneys who holds a patent attorney's license;
"Register" – the Register of Patents kept under the provisions of section 166;
"Registrar" – the person appointed Registrar of Patents under section 157, including – subject to the provisions of section 158 – a Deputy Registrar;
"application date" – the date on which the patent application was submitted, as prescribed for that purpose in section 15, unless a different date is prescribed by or under this Law.
CHAPTER TWO: PATENTABILITY
Right to apply for a patent
2. The owner of a patentable invention is entitled under the provisions of this Law to apply that a patent be granted him for it.
What constitutes a patentable invention
3. An invention, whether a product or a process in any field of technology, which is new and useful, can be used industrially and involves an inventive step, is a patentable invention.
What is a new invention
4. An invention is deemed new if it was not published, in Israel or abroad, before the application date –
(1) by written, visual, audible or any other description, in a manner that enables a skilled person to make it according to the particulars of the description;
(2) by exploitation or exhibition, in a manner that enables a skilled person to make it according to the particulars thus made known.
What is an inventive step
5. An inventive step is a step which does not, to an average skilled person, appear obvious in the light of information published before the application date in ways said in section 4.
Publications not affecting right of owner of invention
6. The right of the owner of an invention to be granted a patent shall not be affected by publication said in section 4 –
(1) if it is proved that the matter published was obtained from him the owner of the invention or his predecessor in title and was published without his consent, and if the patent application was filed within a reasonable time after the publication became known to the applicant; or
(2) (a) the publication was by the owner of the invention or his predecessor in title in one of the following ways:
(i) display at an industrial or agricultural exhibition in Israel or at a recognized exhibition in one of the Member States, of which official notice was given to the Registrar before its opening;
(ii) publication of a description of the invention at the time of a said exhibition;
(iii) use of the invention for the purposes of the exhibition and at the place of the exhibition;
(b) the publication was by use of the invention, even without its owners' consent, at the time of the exhibition, at the place of the exhibition or outside it,
on condition that the patent application was submitted within six months after the exhibition opened;
(3) publication was by way of a lecture by the inventor before a scientific society or by publication of the lecture in official transactions of the society, on condition that the Registrar was given notice of the lecture before it was delivered and that the patent application is filed within six months after the aforesaid publication.
Restriction on granting of patents
7. Notwithstanding the provisions of section 2, no patent shall be granted for –
(1) a method of therapeutic treatment on the human body;
(2) new varieties of plants or animals, except microbiological organisms not derived from nature.
Patent to be for one invention
8. A patent shall be granted for a single invention only.
First application has better right
9. If more than one applicant applied for a patent for the same invention, then the patent shall be granted the one who first validly applied for it.
Priority right
10. (a) If the owner of an invention submitted an application for a patent in Israel for an invention for which he or his predecessor in title already submitted a previous application for a patent in a Member State (hereafter: previous application), then he may request that, for the purposes of sections 4, 5 and 9, the date of the previous application be deemed the date of the application filed in Israel (hereafter: priority right), if all the following conditions are met:
(1) the application in Israel is submitted within 12 months after the previous application was submitted; if more than one previous application was submitted on the same matter – after the date on which the earliest of them was submitted;
(2) the claim for priority right is made not later than two months after submission of the application in Israel;
(3) a copy of the specification submitted with the previous application and of the drawings that accompanied it, the specification being certified by a competent authority in the Convention State in which the previous application was submitted, is submitted to the Registrar at the time prescribed in regulations;
(4) it appears to the Registrar that the invention described in the previous application and the invention for which a patent is sought in Israel are essentially the same.
(b) If the claim for a priority right is based on more than one previous application, and a priority right is claimed on the basis of each of those applications, then the provisions of subsection (a) shall apply to each part of the invention according to the date of the earliest previous application that relates to that part.
(c) If the claim for a priority right is based on part of a previous application, then the provisions of subsection (a) shall apply as if that part had been claimed abroad in a separate previous application.
(d) A priority right may be claimed in respect of part of a patent application, and the provisions of subsection (a) shall thereupon apply to that part only.
CHAPTER THREE: PROCEDURE OF GRANTING PATENT
Article One: Patent Application
Submission of patent application
11. (a) A patent application shall be submitted to the Office in the prescribed manner and form, together with the prescribed fee, and it shall include the name of the applicant, an address in Israel for the service of documents and a specification of the invention.
(b) If the applicant is a person other than the inventor, then he shall state in the application how he came to be the owner of the invention.
Specification
12. (a) The specification shall include a title by which the invention can be identified, its description with drawings that may be necessary, and also a description of the manner in which the invention can be performed, enabling a skilled person to perform it.
(b) For purposes of subsection (a), if the subject of the invention is a biological material or a process for the production of a biological material or an invention that involves the use of a biological material, and if the biological material was deposited with a deposit institution, then part of the description of the invention or of the manner of its performance may consist of referral to that deposit, all in a manner and on conditions to be prescribed by the Minister of Justice with approval by the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.
For purposes of this section –
"biological material" – a biological material not easily available to the public, which cannot be described in a manner that will enable a skilled person to perform the invention, on condition that the biological material can be duplicated or reproduced, either independently or in a host animal or plant cell;
"deposit institution" – an institution recognized as an international deposit authority under section 7 of the Budapest Convention, or an institution which the Registrar recognized for purposes of this section, notice thereof having been published in Reshumot;
"Budapest Convention" – the Budapest Convention for the International Recognition of Living Matter for Patent Proceedings, signed on April 28, 1977, as amended on September 26, 1980; the Convention is available in the Office for inspection by the public.
Claims
13. (a) The specifications shall end with a claim or claims that define the invention, on condition that each said claim reasonably arise out of the subject described in the specification.
(b) It is permissible to express in the claim any of the basic elements of the invention as a means or a step for the performance of a certain act, and it is not necessary to specify the structure, the material or the acts required for the performance of that act; a claim expressed as aforesaid shall be deemed to include particulars of the relevant structure, material or acts, as described in the specifications.
Acknowledgment of submission