America-Israel Patent Law

Meeting at Israel PTO re Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) Practice

Following the recent announcement that Israel and the United States had reached a PCT-PPH agreement, yesterday the Israel PTO announced via its website and its email distribution list that on October 17, 2012 it would be holding a workshop regarding PPH practice from 8:30-13:30.  Presentations will be given by both ILPTO and USPTO officials.  A detailed program will follow.  People wishing to attend should send an email to Michal Logasi: [email protected].  

The fact that the ILPTO saw fit to announce the PPH program via its website, but not the upcoming meeting with the examination corps, only heightens the strangeness of the latter non-announcement.   

Powwow with the Patent Examiners at the Israel PTO on September 20

In an e-mail message sent out last week by the Association of Patent Attorneys in Israel, a voluntary professional association similar to the National Association of Patent Practitioners in the USA, it was announced that on September 20, a meeting will take place at the Israel PTO between patent practitioners and the examination corps at 14:00.  People wishing to participate to should send an email to [email protected].  A list of topics will be sent to the ILPTO on September 4, although people with questions were asked to submit them to [email protected] by September 2; there was no word in the announcement regarding what kind of a filtering process, if any, the questions would go through prior to be sent to the ILPTO, or who would be doing the filtering and what criteria would be used.  Although there was nothing in the announcment saying that participation is limited to persons having a license to practice before the ILPTO, curiously, the ILPTO didn't announce the meeting through its own email list, which presumably includes many interested parties who are not on the distribution list used by the Association.  A copy of the full annoucement in Hebrew appears below.