America-Israel Patent Law

Why Does The Israel PTO Charge A Fee To Grant DAS Access?

To IP professionals, "DAS" stands for "Digital Access Service", a service run by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).  As explained on WIPO's site:

"The WIPO Digital Access Service (DAS) is an electronic system allowing priority documents and similar documents to be securely exchanged between participating intellectual property (IP) offices. The system enables applicants and offices to meet the requirements of the Paris Convention for certification in an electronic environment.

"The Service is intended for use with documents related to patents, utility models, industrial designs and trademarks."

The idea is you file a patent (or design, or trademark) application in one jurisdiction, and within a specified period of time (one year for patents, generally 6 months for designs or trademarks) you can file in other jurisdictions and claim "priority" from the first filing, which means it's as if you filed that first application in the other jurisdictions on the same day you filed in the first jurisdiction. 

Until the computer age, and even well into it, for such a priority claim to be effective, an applicant had to provide each foreign jurisdiction with a paper copy of the priority document, certified as authentic by the issuing patent office. This usually involved someone at the first office photocopying the document, then affixing a ribbons and seals to show that it was the real deal. Since employee time costs money, applicants had to pay for these copies. And then had to pay to send the physical copies by courier to an associate in each foreign jurisdiction of interest, who would charge for filing the document.

At some point, some IP offices made bilateral arrangements to provide each other with electronic versions of priority applications.  Then WIPO introduced DAS, which is wonderful, because (a) any IP office can participate, and (b) once a participating office has uploaded the priority document to DAS, any other participating office can download a copy from DAS. Since the original copy was provided directly by the office in which the document was originally filed, the downloaded copies are certified in the sense that they're verified as authentic, and the applicant no longer has to obtain multiple certified paper copies - the one copy directly uploaded to DAS by the first office is sufficient. And no need to pay couriers or foreign associates to the document filed.

With the automation of tasks through computers, and the move of many if not most patent offices to electronic filing and record keeping, it takes almost no effort for an IP office to provide a copy of a priority document to DAS.  The USPTO, for example, doesn't charge money to upload an application to DAS.  If you file, say, a new provisional patent application using an Application Data Sheet (ADS), the default setting is that you're giving instructions to the USPTO to make that application available in DAS (there's a box to check to opt out, though I don't know why one would do that).  If you don't use an ADS at the time of filing, you can later submit a form SB/39 instructing the USPTO to make the document available to DAS.  And DAS has a feature that allows applicants to verify that the document has been uploaded to DAS. 

Israel joined DAS a few years ago, several years after electronic filing of all patent applications filed by a patent practitioners (the vast majority of filings in Israel) became mandatory.  But for some strange reason, not only will the Israel PTO make a priority document available via DAS only if the applicant explicitly requests that it do so, but the office continues to charge a fee as if it is preparing a paper copy of the document, even though the document was almost certainly filed in electronic form.  The need to make the request, and that fee, remains reasons why I still usually do my clients' initial filings outside of Israel.

Address for Renewal Fee Service: Another Suggestion for the Israel PTO

Patent renewal fees, also sometimes called maintenance fees or annuities, are a feature of most patent systems.  Readers can look at economic-analysis-of-law textbooks for an explanation of the economic rationale for these fees, but from the standpoint of most patent offices they’re just another form of income.  In the US, renewal fees are due 3.5, 7.5 and 11.5 years after patent grant; in Israel they’re due within three months of grant and thereafter at 6, 10, 14 and 18 years from the filing date.

Although the renewal fees themselves can get hefty, particularly toward the end of the life of a patent, administratively it doesn’t take much to pay the fee, especially now that most patent office accept online payments.  It should therefore come as no surprise that there are several companies that in essence function as renewal fee payment aggregators: they have managed to get lots of customers to pay them to manage renewal fee payments, and as a result they’re usually able to negotiate bulk discounts with a local service provider that takes care of the actual payment.  (I say “usually” because it's not always the case that the cost when working through one of these providers is cheaper.) For patentees, especially patentees with large portfolios, this can be a good deal, since the renewal fee company keeps track of the deadlines and the costs, for less than it would cost having a law firm track this information.

The USPTO recognizes the fact that paying a renewal fee is a purely ministerial act, and allows a patentee to maintain one address for service for correspondence for substantive matters (like patent term extensions), while maintaining a separate address for correspondence pertaining to renewal fees. This way, if the patentee chooses to use a renewal fee service, and there’s a power of attorney on file, the attorney of record is off the hook for renewal fees.

Sadly, while the Israel PTO recognizes that paying renewal fees is purely ministerial and therefore will accept a renewal fee payment from anyone, the Israel PTO does not recognize that it’s possible to have separate correspondence addresses for renewal fees and for other matters. This oversight creates unnecessary work for local practitioners, particularly since the Israel PTO usually requires – unjustifiably, in my view, but that’s a topic for another blog post – that patent applicants submit a power of attorney.  The way it works is that the Israel practitioner will generally prosecute a case through to grant, and then pay the first renewal fee due within 3 months of grant.  Thereafter, though, the patentee often uses a renewal fee service, which contracts with one of the large Israel patent firms to take care of its renewal fees.

That in and of itself wouldn’t matter, but (a) the Israel PTO sends renewal fee reminders* to the address for service on record, and that’s usually the address of the practitioner to whom the POA was given, and (b) the renewal fee certificates that are issued once the fee has been paid are sent to that same address for service. 

The result is that a practitioner who has been told by the client that he is not responsible for renewal fees in a particular case continues to receive notices about renewal fees for that case, something that may necessitate checking the docket system to confirm that he is not responsible for renewal fee in question.

While a practitioner could in principle withdraw from representation once the patent issues, that’s overkill, since the patentee may want the practitioner to continue to be responsible, e.g. should the patent be subject to a cancellation action of if it’s desired to obtain an extension of a pharmaceutical patent.

There is no reason the Israel PTO can’t do like the USPTO does, and enable the recording of a separate address for renewal fee correspondence. It would make life easier for everyone involved.

*The fact that the Israel PTO sends renewal reminders BEFORE the fees are due is a nice service. The USPTO, by contrast, only sends out a reminder once the initial deadline has been missed, as if to say, “Oops, you missed your deadline and now you can still pay, but with a 10% penalty.”

USPTO Moving to Electronic Issuance of Patents

In a press release from today and a Federal Register Notice that will be published tomorrow, the USPTO announces that in April it will be moving to electronically issued patents, rather than continuing to publish paper copies. This will come as a relief to some, but will be disappointing for those who like those paper copies.

However, the main practical difference for applicants will be that the window to file continuation applications (or to withdraw the application from issue, for example to file an information disclosure statement) will be much smaller.  At present, once the issue fee is paid, it takes the USPTO several weeks (usually six to eight) to issue the patent, an act that always occurs on a Tuesday. About three weeks before the patent is issued, the USPTO mails an "issue notification", telling the applicant when the patent will issue, and effectively informing the applicant of the deadline to file a continuation application or withdraw from issue.  Under the new scheme, the patent will issue shortly after the issue fee is paid, still on a Tuesday, but the applicant will only get warning of the impending issuance 5 or 6 days beforehand.  "Therefore", says the USPTO, "the best practice would be for applicants to file these submissions as early as possible. Preferably, continuing applications should be filed before the payment of the issue fee."  This may be the first time that I will recommend that clients follow legal advice given by the USPTO

Mea Culpa, and Check Your Israel PTO Email Subscription

In a previous post I stated that the Israel PTO did not use its regular email subscription list to inform people about its recently-held "roundtable" on possible "ethics rules" for patent practitioners.  Turns out I was wrong on that score, and I apologize for that.  I discovered last night that the email account I usually use stopped receiving emails via the ILPTO subscription list about two months ago.  (There's another account I have to which those emails are also sent, which is how I discovered the source of the problem, but I check that account infrequently.)  I'm not sure why I stopped getting the emails at my regular account, but I promptly re-subscribed.  If you're supposed to get emails from the Israel PTO but haven't received any lately, maybe you should re-subscribe.

FWIW, I still smell a rat with the process for adopting these "ethics rules", but that's for a future post.

What Were They Thinking In Congress (Assuming They Were Thinking)? Changes In Small and Micro Entity Fees

There was a piece last week in The American Spectator that argues that the 1998 SCOTUS decision Clinton v City of New York is the worst supreme court decision ever. That decision said that the line-item veto was unconstitutional. The author argues that by forcing the president to either approve or veto the Congressional spending bill in its entirety – a veto resulting in a shut-down of the federal government – all sorts of junk that would never get enacted otherwise now gets thrown into the spending bill.  If what happened with patent legislation last week is any indication, the author seems to have a point.

Tucked into the spending bill that Joe Biden signed into law on December 29 were several amendments that change 35 U.S.C., which is where most of the statutory language governing patents is found. (Hat tip to Scott Nielsen for the link; search for the word “unleashing” to find the relevant part.) The amendment with the most immediate effect was the change in fees for small entity and micro entity patent applicants.  If you’re already familiar with small and micro entity fees, skip ahead a few paragraphs. If not, keep reading.

Small entity fees have been around since before I started working in patents in 1995; these were meant to give small companies a break when seeking (or to remove a disincentive to seeking) patent protection, and provided a 50% reduction on certain PTO fees, most notably filing, search, examination, extension of time, and maintenance fees. Micro entity fees are a newer creature, the result of the 2011 “America Invents Act”, and these have hitherto reduced certain fees by 75%, but there are more requirements to qualify for micro entity status than there are to qualify for small entity status. 

Both micro entity and small entity status are asserted by the applicant/patentee at certain times in the lifetime of an application or patent (upon initial filing, upon payment of the issue fee, and upon payment of each maintenance fee), and normally the status is not something the PTO checks or even has the wherewithal to check.  Nevertheless, I’ve never filed an application for someone claiming microentity status, and I know other practitioners who are in the same situation: we think that the cost of verifying entitlement to microentity status (in attorney time) outweighs the additional 25% fee reduction over the 50% small entity reduction.  Micro entity status is thus an example of a nice idea that’s poorly implemented.

Small entity status, on the other hand, is easier to verify, because the way in which “small entity” is defined is fairly straightforward: if the application or patent is owned by an entity that has 500 or more employees, or there’s an obligation to assign to such an entity, then the applicant/patentee isn’t entitled to claim small entity status.

If one makes a good faith mistake in claiming small entity status, hitherto the remedy has been straightforward: you pay the difference in the fees that were due in accordance with the fee schedule in effect on the day you make the correction in entity status.  So if, for example, you paid a $500 fee at the small entity rate, and a week later discover that it should have been $1000, you pay the $500 difference.  If a fee increase or decrease went into effect between when the fee was originally paid and the difference paid, that difference will be in accordance with what the new fee is.

Of course, if the patent is valuable, and at some point the patentee corrects a payment that was mistakenly made at the small entity (or micro entity) rate, then in litigation the defendant will make an issue out of the applicant/patentee’s good faith, thus adding cost to the litigation…which is why practitioners try to avoid making such mistakes in the first place. This is also why, in situations in which the determination of small entity status is more complicated, some applicants may elect to pay full fare, to keep this issue off the table. Nevertheless, if the good faith in making fee payment at the reduced rate is demonstrable, then the mistake per se in claiming small entity status is not fatal, and fee-wise, there’s no penalty.

In contrast, deliberately paying the reduced fee to which one is not entitled is fraud, and, once discovered, it leads to one result: an invalid patent. And yes, there have been cases where people tried to pull a fast one on the PTO and later got caught. Bye bye, patent.

This brings us to last week’s statutory amendments. Among other things, they increase the small entity fee reduction to 60% of the normal fee and the micro entity reduction to 80% of the normal fee (viz. qualifying applicants/patentees now pay only 40% or 20% of the relevant fees).  But now there’s a catch if you incorrectly assert entitlement to fee reduction:

Penalty for False Assertions.--In addition to any other penalty available under law, an entity that is found to have falsely asserted entitlement to a fee reduction under this section shall be subject to a fine, to be determined by the Director, the amount of which shall be not less than 3 times the amount that the entity failed to pay as a result of the false assertion, whether the Director discovers the false assertion before or after the date on which a patent has been issued.

What’s meant here by “false assertions”? Off the top of my head, I can think of at least two ways to read this, one of which definitely is wrong. 

Let’s start with the way it could be read, but shouldn’t: it shouldn’t be read as saying that a willful false assertion of entitlement to fee reduction (viz. small or micro entity status) is subject to a penalty, because such a willful false statement constitutes fraud, and the result of fraud until now has been invalidation of the patent.  What’s the point in the PTO saying to a patentee, “You deliberately paid a fee a reduced rate to which you weren’t entitled, so now your patent is invalid, and please pay us $$$ to keep you invalid patent invalid”?  

So unless the amended statute means to say that fraud is now ok – and I don’t see any court buying into such a statutory construction – the new statutory language must be referring to cases of inadvertent false statements.

That means that now there’s a financial penalty for a mistaken good-faith payment of a small or micro entity fee.  If you paid it incorrectly, then that mistake is going to cost you at least three times the amount that you didn’t pay at the time.  If we’re talking, say, the third maintenance fee, that’s several thousand dollars. 

Since an applicant or patentee only needs to certify small or micro entity status at certain points in the life of a patent, I suspect that as a result of the amendments, more applicants/patentees than before who discover they have inadvertently paid the wrong fee will not immediately seek to pay the correct amount – which will now entail a significant penalty – but will simply wait until the next time they need update their status, and at that time pay the fee at the higher rate. The PTO will be none the wiser.

Which makes me wonder just what the sponsor of this particular bill thought s/he was going to accomplish with it.

Another Update On Docx

Following up the previous two posts (here and here) re docx:

First, David Boundy says that tomorrow there will be a Federal Register Notice in which the PTO delays by three months the imposition of the $400 charge for failure to file in "docx".

https://www.federalregister.gov/public-inspection/2022-28436/setting-and-adjusting-patent-fees-during-fiscal-year-2020

 

 

Second, Carl Oppedahl has written a superb explanation of the problems with docx, and how the PTO has repeatedly lied about this being a standard:

https://blog.oppedahl.com/?p=8681#comment-219169

If you're a practitioner, please sign the letter to Director Vidal, urging her to read his explanation.

 

I will be shocked if the PTO persists in this docx nonsense.

USPTO Backs Down, Maybe, At Least Temporarily, From Its Docx Fee Grab

Last month I wrote about USPTO Director Kathy Vidal’s statement in October (at the AIPLA Annual meeting) that the PTO was going to deign to continue to let applicants file pdfs with their new patent application filings.  What I didn’t make clear – because it wasn’t clear to me – was that the USPTO was still planning to impose a $400 fee for anyone who didn’t do the initial filing in “docx” format.  I also noted that as of November 30, I still hadn’t seen anything in writing about this.

On December 19, Director Vidal published a Director’s Blog post, and on December 20, the PTO published a Federal Register notice, stating that indeed, applicants would continue to be allowed to file pdfs with their “docx” filings…but that as of January 1, 2022 there would be a $400 fee if you didn’t file in docx.  In other words, you could only file the pdf if you also filed the docx file.* As of July 1, you’d get hit with the $400 fee if you had the chutzpa to include a pdf version of the application with your initial filing.

(Because of the high likelihood of errors entering an application when the PTO converts it from the docx version submitted by the applicant to the version to be used by the PTO, most practitioners were planning to continue to file in pdf and to pass the $400 fee on to their clients. Since the PTO estimated that forcing applicants to file in docx would save the PTO $3.15 per application, far below the fee to be imposed, the more cynical among us viewed this whole docx thing as a surreptitious attempt by the PTO to increase its revenues.)

Enter David Boundy and the group of dedicated practitioners on Carl Oppedahl’s listserv groups. By the end of the business day on December 23, David had drafted and, with input from many, revised a letter to Director Vidal, collected signatures from 117 practitioners on that letter, and sent it to director Vidal. The letter explained some of both the practical and legal problems with proceeding with the requirement for “docx” filing, and asked that applicants continue to be allowed to file in either docx OR pdf for at least another six months.  The letter also hinted that if the PTO were to proceed as planned, it would likely have a lawsuit on its hands.

On December 24 Director Vidal phoned David and, in a nutshell, said that a notice would be published this coming week giving applicants “breathing room”.  We’ll see how much time that is, but the expectation is that, come January 1, we’ll still be able to submit our applications in pdf format, without penalty.**

This is a good first step, but considering the myriad ways in which the PTO has repeatedly lied to, deceived, misled, and misrepresented to the public, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Small Business Administration – even its F.R. notice of December 20 – it would be best if the PTO would rescind this docx nonsense.

*To add insult to injury, you’d only be able to include the pdf document if you filed using PatentCenter, the combined filing and document access system that the PTO has been working for several years, a system has many bugs (some that were reported in alpha testing three years ago that still haven’t been fixed) and still lacks many features. The PTO’s handling of PatentCenter has been much like its handling of docx: no one to talk to, and no responsiveness.

**According to Carl on his blog, AIPLA, IPO, and Brad Forrest also told the Director that docx is not ready for prime time.

…But Persists In Another Dumb Idea

My last post concerned the USPTO wisely backing down from its proposed “voluntary CLE”.  This post concerns its ongoing insistence to plow ahead with its “docx filing” requirement.

In late October, at the AIPLA Annual Meeting, then-AIPLA president Patrick Coyne interviewed PTO Director Kathi Vidal. While some of her remarks in response to his questions were covered by IPLaw360, one statement in particular seemed to fly under the radar of that publication as well as the prominent patent blogs.

Specifically, Ms. Vidal was asked about the docx filing program, and she responded that (a) she appreciated AIPLA’s input on the matter, and per the suggestion of AIPLA and others, the PTO had begun to allow the submission of a pdf file along with the docx file, and (b) although that option was originally intended to be available only until January 1, 2023, when failure to file in docx format would incur a $400 fee, the PTO is delaying implementation of that rule until July 1, 2023, and thus the ability to file a pdf file along with the docx file, without financial penalty, will continue until then.

Readers familiar with the USPTO’s docx filing program and its many deficiencies will understand Vidal’s remarks are but one more instance of the PTO’s repeated failure to listen to the community of patent filers and to comprehend the problems with the docx filing requirement that this community has expressed on multiple occasions.

In this particular case, what AIPLA, and others (including yours truly) asked for was not the privilege of being able to submit a pdf document in addition to the docx file, but vice versa: to continue to have applicants submit user-created pdf files as the definitive documents, but to be encouraged to submit docx files in addition to the pdf files, to help the PTO do whatever it is it wanted to do with docx files.  This, in fact, is the way people filing PCT applications using WIPO’s ePCT already operate, and it works extremely well.

The primary concern with requiring filing in docx format is that the PTO uses proprietary software to convert the user’s docx document to something else, and it’s THAT something else that will become the official document. Since in many cases it will not be practical, prior to filing, to check this converted form line-by-line to ensure that the conversion did not create errors in the document (e.g. in mathematical formulas), filing in docx opens the door to malpractice suits.  Hence it is expected that a significant number of practitioners will continue to file in pdf, and to pass on the $400 fee to their clients. The more cynical among us believe the PTO knows this, and is using this docx requirement as an underhanded way to extort money from the public.

In any event, although more than a month has gone by since Ms. Vidal made her remarks at the AIPLA meeting, no official announcement has come forth from the USPTO regarding delay in the docx requirement. Which is a pity, because as of October 1, the USPTO did not have approval from the Office of Management and Budget (required under the Paperwork Reduction Act) to move forward with its docx program.  Since such approval must come three months in advance, the USPTO cannot legally move forward with the docx program on January 1.  If a lawsuit is filed against the USPTO to enjoin the docx requirement and imposition of the $400 fee – and I’m aware of at least one individual who is preparing to file such a suit – it is not only likely that and injunction will be granted, and that ultimately the USPTO will lose (just as it lost 15 years ago in the battle over the claims and continuation rules), but the USPTO will wind up with significant egg on its face, as it has been persistently duplicitous in its pursuit of the docx debacle.

USPTO Permanently Backs Down from One Dumb Idea…

In October 2020, the USPTO proposed a scheme of voluntary continuing legal education (CLE) for patent practitioners.  The PTO would be among the CLE providers, and would make a public notation of those practitioners who fulfilled the requirements.  The proposal was almost universally panned in the comments that were submitted (including comments from David Boundy, from Neil Ormos, from this writer, and surprisingly forceful comments from the AIPLA). 

Last year, the PTO blinked, and said it was temporarily shelving the proposed CLE requirement.  Now the PTO reports that in a Federal Register notice to be published on November 14, 2022, it is killing the CLE requirement. 

This is a most welcome development. Among other things, for reasons explained in the comments, the proposed plan was not going to “improve patent quality”, and would place an additional, unnecessary burden on practitioners without realizing any substantive benefits.

And yet, the PTO’s tilting at windmills persists, as revealed in recent remarks by PTO Director Kathi Vidal concerning docx filings.  I’ll report on that in another blog post, hopefully soon.

Why Not Use Global Dossier To Comply With Israel Prior Art Disclosure Requirements?

Someone I met at the recent AIPLA meeting (the same person I mentioned in my previous post, who serves as in-house patent counsel for a company with a tight budget) complained about the duty of disclosure requirements for patent applicants in Israel, particularly in light of the advent of the Global Dossier program.

For the uninitiated, Global Dossier is a program in which several of the world’s large patent offices (colloquially known as the IP5) participate: USPTO, EPO, JPO, SIPO, and KIPO. It’s available for free and allows users to easily access documents from patent application files in these countries, usually including English translations of non-English documents issued by those offices.  Both WIPO’s Patentscope and the EPO’s Espacenet enable users to see patent examination files via Global Dossier.

One example of the usefulness of Global Dossier is a way in which the Israel PTO already utilizes it. When making a request to expedite prosecution under the Patent Prosecution Highway (under which an application will jump the queue if the claims pending in Israel are amended to correspond to claims allowed by a foreign patent office with which the Israel PTO has a PPH agreement), an applicant can provide a copy of the necessary documents, or, if those documents are available via GD, instruct the Israel PTO to obtain the documents via GD.  In a recent PPH request I filed in which I told the Israel PTO to obtain the document via GD, the PPH request was granted the next day.

This takes us back to my interlocutor’s question/complaint: given the availability of GD, and the disclosure requirements in other countries, why can’t the Israel PTO simply make use of GD and rely on the searches and applicant disclosures in IP5 countries, instead of requiring applicants themselves to submit the information and documents? It’s a legitimate query, especially in light of the facts that (a) based on Israel PTO office actions, it seems that examiners already make use of GD, and (b) the disclosure requirements in the USA are similarly stringent to those in Israel, and thus could probably safely be relied upon.  

The unhelpful answer to the question is, Applicants have to jump through hoops because the statute in Israel (still) requires that applicants provide these disclosures. §18(a)(1) and §18(a)(2) of the statute say that, in assessing the allowability of claims of the patent application, the examiner may rely on publications cited against foreign patent applications for the same invention or known to the applicant to be relevant to patentability. §18(b)(1) says that the examiner will require the applicant to furnish the documents mentioned in §18(a)(1) and §18(a)(2). And §18A imposes an obligation on applicants to update the Office regarding the lists in §18(a)(1) and §18(a)(2) up until the time of acceptance of the patent application.  So at present, there’s not really a way around the statutory language that was written in pre-GD times.

Except, of course, that a lot of what is required is dependent on the Israel PTO, and it sometimes relaxes the requirements, at no detriment to the applicant or the public. The most obvious case in point is that the statute says that applicants must provide copies of documents relied upon by foreign patent offices, but in practice the Israel PTO has for a good number of years said that applicants only need to provide copies of such documents that are not patent documents (like journal articles), as ILPTO can themselves easily access patent publications. This relaxation of the requirement doesn’t meet the letter of the law; but I have not yet heard of a situation in which an opposition to the grant of a patent, or a challenge to the validity of a patent, was upheld on the grounds that the applicant merely provided the ILPTO with the number of a cited patent publication and not with an actual copy of the cited patent publication. 

So in the present case, the ILPTO could say something like, “With regard to disclosures under §18(a)(1) and §18(a)(2), we will consider the applicant’s duty to be fulfilled if the applicant refers the Office to the documents cited by, or provided by the applicant to, IP5 offices, which are available via Global Dossier.”  Inasmuch as this would reduce costs for patent applicants in Israel, it would make filing in Israel a more attractive proposition for some applicants. The onus would still be on the applicant to make sure that its IP5 prior art disclosures were up to date, and there would be the risk that something relevant wasn’t reported to the ILPTO, and thus could serve as grounds for a challenge to the grant or validity of a patent. But the overall workload for the applicant would be lessened. And if indeed the examiners already use GD, there would be no loss of information provided to the ILPTO either.

Who Files Documents At the Israel PTO After 6 PM?

Went to login to file something at the Israel PTO, and got the notice at the bottom of the login window below:

If you don't read Hebrew, it says, "There may be disruptions in the web sites starting at 18:00 today".

Hey, who files stuff after 6 PM? The Israel PTO doesn't work then, why should patent applicants?

And which "web sites"? The problem actually seems to have already struck in the patents database, which is presently inaccessible.

Heaven forfend that they do maintenance work on their systems AFTER midnight. (To be fair, there have been occasions in the past when they have pushed off work to that time slot. So why make the mistake now?) In the present case pushing off work until after midnight would be even better, because it would be early Friday morning, which isn't a workday and Israel and therefore any deadlines are pushed off until Sunday.

But lately the USPTO has also been doing systems maintenance beginning at 10 PM eastern time on weeknights, viz. two hours before the business day ends for those who file electronically. Evidently someone in Israel doesn't want to be left out of the party.

 

Request of Israel PTO: Please Include the COMPLETE versions of the Regulations on Your "Statute and Regulations" Page

The Israel PTO's web site includes a page that has links to the Patents Statute and the relevant implementing Regulations, of which there are three sets: the 1968 regulations that pertain to most of the ILPTO's patent operations, the 1996 regulations adopted to enable implementation of the PCT, and the 1998 regulations regarding patent term extensions.  The 1968 regulations contain several addenda, which are rather important: the fees for various things, like the patent filing fee, extension fees, and issue fees are all established in the "second addendum".

So why does the version of the 1968 regulations found on the "statutes and regulations" page not contain the second addendum?

It turns out that a version of the regulations containing the second addendum - at least as it was updated in 2017, without reflecting the current fees as of 2022 - can be found on a different page.

Please, ILPTO, update the link on the "statutes and regulations" page to link to a version of the regulations that include the addenda.