Despite then Finance Minister, Olmert kowtowing to the US, it appears that Israel will remain on the Priority Watch List for 2006.
Israel entered the list in 2005, and since then has made strenuous efforts to improve IP protection.
In March 2005, Israel’s Knesset approved legislation on data protection. According to Priority Watch however, it still fails to provide OECD-level protection against unfair commercial use of confidential test data submitted by innovator pharmaceutical companies.
Pharmaceutical patents anyway enjoy patent term extensions of up to five years against generic comanies such as Israel’s hugely successful Teva. Such extensions are designed to take delays in obtaining FDA approval into account. The US contention, although supported by TRIPS agreements that were also steamrollered through by the US, appears to be an attempt to get compensated twice for the delay in obtaining approval for new drugs. It would appear therefore, that the blacklisting is simply American pressure aimed at protecting her commercial interests against those of Israeli companies.
The delay in obtaining patent protection due to open ended pre grant opposition proceedings has also come under scrutiny. The system was certainly inefficient and open to abuse. However, the opposition process has been thoroughly rehauled. Under Patent Office reforms spearheaded by Commissioner of Patents, Dr. Meir Noam, litigators have been criticized and even fined for unacceptable long delays, baseless requests for extensions and groundless opposition proceedings, so we expect US criticism on these grounds to become more muted.
Other US criticisms of Israeli protection of IP that are covered in the report include software copyright infringement. Here significant improvement is acknowedged, however.
