Intellectual Property Laws in Israel may be broadly divided into two main categories: Industrial, and what may be described as Artistic, Intellectual Property.
Industrial Intellectual Property is in fact that legal right or protection afforded to various goods general manufactured by an industrial process, i.e. automatic mass production.
This category covers patents, designs and trademarks. The rights in question may be registered with the Patent Office.
A patent refers to legal protection of a product's functionality—its essence rather than its form, colour etc., i.e. protection of a practical solution to a technological problem.
A design, however, refers to the outward form of a product, irrespective of its functionality. There are however products eligible for both patent and design registration, having functional as well as design elements for which protection is desired.
A trademark is a means for protecting a manufacturer's reputation. All merchandise is marketed under a company's or factory's name, logo, image etc. by which the manufacturer is recognised. The purpose of trademark protection is to prevent attempts to profit from a manufacturer's reputation by copying his trademark.
So-called Artistic Intellectual Property principally covers creators' copyrights—i.e. legal protection against infraction of copyrights over works of art in forms such as literature, music, cinema, architecture, sculpture, painting etc.
Although computer software can hardly be regarded as a work of art, the law nevertheless includes it in this category as well (applying to Israeli Law only, as the type of protection extended to computer software varies from country to country, some providing for patenting of computer software).
Our firm specialises in representation at the Patent Office in various processes conducted under its jurisdiction (registration applications, appeals, deletion and cancellation requests and the like) and also infraction claims and other court actions.
