America-Israel Patent Law

Surprise! Israel PTO Messes Up, Er, Redesigns Web Site Without Warning

Thank God for bureaucrats – where would we citizens of the modern state be without them?

Nearly five-and-a-half years after rolling out its less-than-stellar electronic filing system for patents without significant beta-testing or public input, the Israel PTO has now re-done its website, apparently without warning – and, evidently, again without beta-testing. Those of us on the ILPTO’s mailing list received word of the change last night, in the form of the following email:

"To the public of applicants, attorneys-at-law and patent agents, greetings.

"We wish to inform you that the Patent Office web site has moved to the GOV.IL platform, which is the government platform that government offices are obligated to use. The GOV.IL platform is very different from the old site, and therefore we estimate that you will need a period of time to transition to the new site.

"For any comment, question or assistance, you may contact Ms. Shirley Cohen, the Office’s contact person for the web site, at [email protected] or at 073-392-7167."

What fun.

From the letter it sounds like this was something forced upon the ILPTO, but even if that’s the case, it was clearly in the works for a while, so why not give advance warning? (In the interest of fairness, I’ll note that it’s possible there was advanced that I missed…but I don’t think so, as none of the colleagues with whom I’ve spoken recall seeing advance warning of the change.) If you recognize that a transition period is necessary, why not have the two systems run in parallel for a period of time to allow people to compare (or, in a pinch, use the old system), instead of forcing everyone onto the new site without warning? And why not solicit public input so as to improve the system before you launch?

I have not had much time to play with the new site and figure it out. Maybe it’s substantively better than the old site, but I don’t see how a one-size-fits-all formula for all state web sites is necessarily an improvement.  Certainly, the time that will have to be invested by veteran users of the old site to familiarize themselves with the new site will be considerable. That loss of productive, tax-generating hours is obviously not a consideration for the bureaucrats.

Nor have I had a chance to see if the English version of the site is complete. The English version of the old site lacked much of the information of the Hebrew site, so perhaps in this regard the new site is an improvement.

One thing that I find annoying is that the top bar on every screen is the bar for the entire gov.il site. So if I click on, say, the “information” tab, and select “legal information”, the next screen lets me search the entirety of what is classified as “legal information” on ALL the Israel government sites.  All 14,128 pages, in fact, as of today.  Just what I need when I’m looking for info specifically from the Patent Office.

 

Sigh.

At least the IDF and home-grown Israeli technology provides me with the luxury of ruminating on stupidities like this even as our friendly neighbors send heavy projectiles our way.  More on that in a subsequent post.

"All Our Patents Are Belong To You"

Yesterday Elon Musk of Tesla Motors put up this blog post, in which he is apparently trying to say that as long as he's in charge, Telsa won't enforce any of its patents, because he wants to encourage others to develop sustainable transportation.  (That reading of it seems to be consensus among tech business writers, such as Will Oremus at Slate.)

Inasmuch as none of the big automakers are trying to copy Tesla or even make a serious run at the non-hydrocarbon burning vehicle market, a point that Musk makes in his post, there seems to be little downside to taking this stance, and far be it for me to second guess his business strategy.  As a lawyer, however, I ask myself if his promise is backed up by action.  For example, by dedicating Tesla's patents to the public, something that can be done through the USPTO. 

A quick, non-exhaustive sample out of the over 100 US patents issued to Tesla Motors indicates that so far, such a step hasn't been taken.  For instance, as of this writing, US 8421469 is still listed in the assignment listings as being owned by Tesla Motors, and there is nothing in PAIR showing that the patent has been dedicated to the public.  Same thing for US 7741750, which was renewed last year, (and along with ownership by Tesla Motors shows with a security interest on record to Midland Loan Services, Inc.)  Ditto for US 7404720.  The same attorney, with his address given as Tesla's Palo Alto addressm, is listed as the contact person for all three patents.  

 

I do not doubt Mr. Musk's sincerity, and perhaps his online statements would be construed by a court as constituting a dedication the public, or an offer for a non-royalty bearing license, or a covenant not to sue.  But until there's something in the record of the patents themselves to corroborate his statements, it's hard not to advise a client thinking of using technology covered by Tesla's patents to obtain written permission to do so before proceeding.  Then again, as my brother the US patent litigator noted, the announcement says "Tesla will not *initiate* lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology", language which implies that Tesla wants to reserve the right to sue if sued, or if it feels someone is using the technology for purposes that Tesla doesn't approve of.  So this statement may be all that we see from Tesla on the matter.  

 

On the humorous side, for those of you who remember Highland Applicance (of blessed memory), the title of his post, "All Our Patent Are Belong To You", reminds me of this classic commercial:

 

Look What They've Done To My CAFC Web Site

The CAFC's web site has a new look, and in that department it's definitely an improvement over the old CAFC site - the new look is much classier.    It also appears to me that it provides more information than the old site, though I haven't accessed an archived version to compare.  I'm not yet sold on the new format for displaying decisions, but I may yet come around to it.  You used to be able to pull a list with 6 months' or a year's worth of decisions at a time, based on the year the decision was given, as well search by party name or case number.  You can still search by name or case number, but you can't search by year – you can go back a day, a week, a month, three months, six months, a year, or list every decision since October 2004.  But you can't list, say, only decisions from the first half of 2005.  Moreover, with the new format, there are at most 50 decisions per page – that's 122 pages (and counting) to possibly sift through.  On the other hand, the new search engine doesn't need to be told to look for partial words – when I plugged in "Fuji" in the hopes of finding a series of cases involving Fujifilm and reconstructed cameras, all the decisions I was looking for (since 2004) came up.  So maybe the new format will prove easier to use than the old one.