On July 13 the ILPTO posted the notification at right on its website. The notification links to this notice from the Justice Ministry, also dated July 13. (A separate notification was sent out a few days earlier via the ILPTO's email distribution list, which links to what appears to be the same MOJ notice, but dated July 10.)
The MOJ has proposed significant changes to the implementation rules for the patent statute, and in its notice it has requested public comments, which can be sent to [email protected].
By today, July 22.
Yup, a total of nine days (12 if you got the ILPTO's email) to comment.
There's no explanation of the rationale behind the proposed rule changes, although looking through them (detailed comments to follow later), it appears that these are the brainchild of ILPTO itself, rather the something originating in the MOJ. There's also no mention of where, if at all, the comments will be posted for public consumption.
The short comment period, coupled with lack of explanatory material, is enough to make one think the prime mover behind the proposed rules (the MOJ or, more likely, the ILPTO) isn't really interested in hearing from the public. But even the USPTO, which also sometimes seems not to care too much what the public has to say, nevertheless gives about two months minimum to post comments on proposed rules, and those comments are made available for the public to view. See, for example, here, with public comments on the so-called "attributable ownership rules"; those proposed rules were first published on January 24 and the comment period, originally set for March 24, was then extended into April.
There's also the small matter of Hamas ratcheting up its latest round of missile attacks on Israeli citizenry around July 4, and Israel beginning to root out the problem with air strikes on July 8 followed by a massive call-up of reserve soldiers not long thereafter, and the present ground action to destroy tunnels used by Hamas to store weapons, protect its leadership (but not other Gazans) from aerial bombardment, and enter Israel to carry out terrorist attacks. No doubt some people who might want to comment have thus been otherwise preoccupied.
There's no real reason to rush the comment period: the rules will have to go through the Knesset Constitution, Statute and Law Committee, which will be on break throughout August and unlikely to schedule these proposed rules for discussion until at least September.
If the MOJ is serious about wanting public comments, it will extend the comment period by at least a month, and post the comments received for public viewing. I'm fairly sure it will do the former, but in case it doesn't do the latter, I ask any readers who do submit comments to send copies to me so they can at least be posted here.