The Israel Patent Office has just published a report covering its activity in 2010.

The report, in Hebrew, is available from here: http://www.justice.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/C6ACFC67-FFF0-4D16-A8C3-DCFD0154D82E/0/2010.pdf

There are 45 pages of statistical data that contains few surprises, bound in a blue cover with a slightly corny lightbulb image.

Much of the comparative material, showing how the IPO compares with patent offices in other jurisdictions, and the number of patents filed per GDP and per population are found in the OECD report, on WIPO’s website, and in a paper I wrote together with Jeremy Ben David and which was published in WIPR a couple of months ago. Nevertheless, the report is comprehensive and compares favorably to the odd table or graph that the patent office has traditionally published.

There is some data on oppositions that has never been presented before and also comprehensive ranking tables showing where incoming filings originate.

The document carries two introductions, one from newly installed commissioner, Adv. Asa Kling, and one from his predecessor Dr Meir Noam. We weren’t surprised to see that each commissioner has lauded his predecessor / successor. However, since the document relates to the end of Dr Noam’s tenure, and before Adv. Kling took over as commissioner, this seems appropriate, if a little tiresome. Actually to be fair, 2010 was a good year for Dr Noam, whose achievements were many.

Of note, there is apparently on going consultation between the patent office and the Ministry of Justice regarding a Design Law to replace the 1924 Ordinance inherited from the British mandate, which is still in force.

We were surprised to learn that Brazil is a major filer or design registrations in Israel. Indeed 109 of the 423 design registrations originating from abroad came from Brazil, ahead of everywhere else including the US. Apparently, this is due almost exclusively to H Stern, a Brazilian jewelry firm with many outlets in Israel. Apart from jewelry, Israel design registrations were filed mostly for clothing, building materials, ornaments and food containers. In total, 1622 design applications were filed, which is, however, less than in any of the years 2005-2009.

There were a total of 8017 trademark applications filed into Israel in 2010, which is less than any of the years 2005-2009 and nearly 2500 less than 2008.

Protocol Madrid for the multi-national registration of trademarks came into force in Israel in September 2010, and in the last quarter of the year, some 463 filings were made into Israel via the protocol, and 37 international applications originating in Israel were filed.

In total, some 7266 patent applications were filed in Israel in 2010, which is up from 6780 in 2009, but still below the 2006-2008 levels which peaked, in 20o7, at 8064.  Most of these applications were Paris/PCT filings or divisional applications, claiming priority from earlier applications. The number of new applications first filed in Israel was 1044, which is the smallest number for a decade. It seems that more and more Israeli applicants are first filing in the US, either as regular applications, or are filing US provisional applications.

There was a lot of patents examined and allowed, but problems in publication delayed them issuing and probably contributed to the low number of oppositions filed, which, at 22, is up from 2009 when only 20 were filed, and from 2001 when 21 were filed, but much lower than the other years of this millennium.  We suspect however, that a number of cases examined in 2010 only published in 2011 and there will be some additional oppositions (indeed, I am handling one such case together with Adv Lewin from our office).

Some 41% of patent filings into Israel are computer/electronics related. 31% are chemistry (mostly pharmaceuticals), 17% biotech and 11% mechanical or telecommunications related. (I am not sure why telecommunications is related to mechanical and not to computer/electronics. I suspect it is an anomaly dating back to the mechanical telegraph or to the telephone made of two cups connected by a taut string). The Israel Patent Office receives a disproportionate amount of high-tech and pharmaceutical patent filings compared to those in traditional industries. This seems to reflect the fields where Israeli industries are perceived by competitors as being a threat.

In the end of 2009, Dr Noam initiated a fast track for ‘green’ patent applications. Some 22 attempts to have applications recognized as green were made during the year, and of these, 16 were accepted for the fast track, and 6 were refused. In the pie-chart summarizing this information, the 262 degree slice was coloured green, and the remaining 98 degrees was coloured orange. The significance of this colour was not apparent.Israel is a noticeable user of the PCT system in absolute terms, and is the largest user in terms of population. I suspect that this is because of the small local market, and Israel’s favorable trade relations with the US, Europe and the far East.

It seems that IP activity in Israel, both from local entities and from foreign applicants was down in 2010 in patents, designs and trademarks. This does not come as a surprise,  as we’ve felt the drop in work. It is little comfort to know that Israel weathered the recession better than many other economies, and that patent, design and trademark filings are down everywhere, except for China.

However, we note that the patent office has been aggressively attacking backlogs and examination pendencies are down as well.

We hope that the 2011 data will be more positive!

Israel based software company Finjan has sued five rival security companies, including Symantec and McAfee, Webroot Software, Websense and Sophos.

In a lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court of Delaware, Finjan, claims that products of the defendants including McAfee’s Web Gateway and VirusScan software, Symantec’s Brightmail Gateway and Norton Antivirus all infringe core technology patents for antivirus products and security services that are held by Finjan.

Formerly a technology vendor, Finjan has sold out to M86, another security company, but still owns a patent portfolio, of about a dozen patents that are related to computer security. The company is now trying to claim royalties from these patents.

In 2008, Finjan won a jury verdict of 9.2 million dollars against Secure Computing which is now owned by McAfee.Having demonstrated that Secure Computing’s software packages Webwasher and CyberGuard TSP were infringed, A federal judge then increased the damages awarded to $13.8 million.

The company has asked the court to award unspecified financial damages and an injunction preventing the companies from selling their products.

COMMENT

Since the company no longer manufacturers, there is no longer the mutual destruction arrangement favoured by the high-tech world as an in-built mechanism to prevent companies going after injunctions. That said, it is clear that as they no-longer have a market share, Finjan have no interest in preventing others from using their patents. They simply want a reasonable royalty. It seems to me that it is not non-practicing entities that are the problem , but that there is no simple means to calculate fair royalties and to ensure that alleged infringers swiftly identify if they do indeed infringe, and, if so, that they enter into licensing negotiations in good faith.

I think that the cost of litigation in the US is the real problem, not that entities enforce their patents. Identifying and buying up patents to enforce (trolling) is not morally different from a litigating law firm working such cases on a percentage, or a university – which is typically a non-profit organization that benefits from the tax-payer and from philanthropic donations – from filing and then licensing its patents. These business models are acceptable in a free market.  Patents are not licenses to manufacture. They merely provide exclusion rights and using them for that purpose is legitimate. Trading in patents is based on the exclusion right being enforceable.  The ownersof this patent, if they manage to collect royalties, will no-doubt invest the money back into the economy. Transferrring patent rights to those that need it by licensing, and reinvesting resources is the basis of business. Good luck to them. Shame I don’t have shares.

 Israeli technology company Emblaze Ltd. has accused Apple Inc. of patent infringement. the allegations concern a live video-streaming application that the technology giant plans to provide for its iPhone and iPod Touch.

It is not clear which application is intended, but Apple approved an application last week called “Knocking”, that is the first to allow live video streaming, on the 3G network, directly from one device to another.

Meanwhile, Emblaze recently announced its own mobile platform, known as ELSE, that will allegedly integrate the patented technology for streaming video between devices. Emblaze has announced that it is open to licensing its technology to Apple but has set a deadline at December 15th for the iPhone maker to respond.

Israeli start-up Red Bend Software Inc. has filed suite against Google Inc. for patent infringement over Google’s Chrome browser, with the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston.

Red Bend develops software for remote updating mobile content and managing connectivity between devices. The Israeli company claims that Chrome includes an algorithm that, for some reason beyond me, is called Courgette, that enables Google to distribute partial software updates. Courgette allegedly infringes a Red Bend patent registered in April 2003, on technology which enables wireless carriers to efficiently distribute updates for mobile-phone software. Red Bend is claiming willful infringement and thus triple damages.

Disclaimer:  I have no first hand knowledge or opinion as to whether Chrome infringes Red Bend’s software. For the record, I also have no opinion regarding Chrome, although as a Materials Scientist, prefer the more formal Chromium. As to Courgettes (zucchini), personally I prefer them to the light green kishu that is more commonly available in Israel.

In a 2006 lawsuit, Finjan accused Secure Computing of infringing patents for thwarting hostile downloads. In March 2008, a federal jury in Delaware awarded Finjan $9 million in damages. Secure Computing was bought in November 2008 by McAfee, which reported sales of $1.6 billion in 2008. 

The jury ruled that patents owned by Finjan, a company based in Netanya, Israel, were intentionally infringed, and according to an opinion by U.S. District Judge Gregory M. Sleet, Finjan has suffered irreparable harm and deserves 50 percent more in enhanced damages, wrote in an made public today.

Sleet also wrote that the evidence suggests that Secure knew or should have known that it was likely infringing Finjan’s patents, and the damages are warranted, given Secure’s considerable size and relatively healthy financial condition. Furthermore, the damage figure isn’t final, pending calculation of interest and additional infringing product sales, according to Sleet.

Finjan Chief Executive Officer Gadi Maier said the company was pleased with the ruling.

“The product we sell today has been redesigned” and the injunction “will have no impact on our ability to continue selling this product,” McAfee spokesman Joris Evers said in an e-mailed statement. “McAfee intends to appeal this ruling.”

The case is Finjan Software Ltd. v. Secure Computing Corp., 06CV369-GMS, U.S. District Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).

The Law, if passed, would have allowed France to enforce copyright by cutting off Internet access to end-users caught downloading illegal copies of films and songs.

Telecommunications Commissioner of the EU, Viviane Reding, has stated that the vote was “an important restatement of the fundamental rights of EU citizens.” and that “For many, it is of very high symbolic and political value,” she said, calling on EU governments to assess their next move “very carefully.”

The vote appears to be a populist act with elections scheduled in four weeks.

Whereas I am not sure that I would consider stealing films and songs as a fundamental right, I agree the legislation akin to the US Digital Millennium Act is the correct way to go. I would like to see the US having the balls to put the European Union on their 301 Special Reportblack list next year. I think with Google scanning copyright protected literature and making it available for free over the Internet, perhaps the US should put themselves on the Watch List as well. Still Israel is better suited historically to serve as America’s whipping boy in this regard.

This raises fascinating issues.

Generally, sports broadcasting has been copyright protected – see, for example, Israeli Supreme Court’s Tele-Event decision. Usually, some creativity on the part of the cameraman or editor is used as justification for awarding protection.

In this instance, ChessBase was steaming the  moves using a text format notation and thus did not have any creative input whatsoever. If the moves themselves are considered copyright, then the rights are presumably property of the player and not the federation hostig a championship.

One assumes that noone is serious advocating that a move first played by someone cannot be played by another player until the creator has been dead for seventy years? 

It does seem unlikely that a braodcaster requires the federation’s permission. On the other hand, why shouldn’t a hosting organization be able to maintain at least short term braodcasting rights of the moves?

 ”They issued a cease and desist, and we complied,” stated ChessBase co-founder Frederic Friedel. “It is too expensive, time-wise, to get involved in protracted lawsuits with Bulgarians, and there is little to gain, monetarily, from a victory.” Is this simply a case of copyright abuse?

 See http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.1932841.0.0.php

for more details.

U.S. District Judge Rudi Brewster described Qualcomm’s behavior as “extremely foul play” and referred to “its goal of holding hostage the entire industry”.

The judge said Qualcomm worked actively on the Joint Video Team standards-setting body as early as January 2002, before the panel released the H.264 standard in May 2003. By concealing its patents, Qualcomm deprived other companies of a chance to reduce or avoid their dependence on them.

The ruling, is the latest development in the ongoing patent dispute between chip-maker Qualcomm and Broadcom Corp.

Brewster also found Qualcomm guilty of witholding documents and ordered the company to pay Broadcom’s legal expenses.

meanwhile, Qualcomm has apologized for failing to share documents and for “the inaccurate testimony” of some of its witnesses but said it would appeal the decision.

Under current US legislation, although artists and music labels are compensated whenever music is played on satellite, cable or internet radio, the US does not require AM and FM radio stations to pay compensation. This state of affairs contrasts that of most other Western countries where radio broadcasts are considered as public performances and royalties are paid. The lobbying group aims to correct this aberration.

Creative artists deserve comensation for their works being played. Generally these issues are determined by how to apply concepts such as ‘public performance’ to radio transmissions where the listener may be a single person or clients at a commercial entity such as a store or coach, who may be actively listening to the music or may merely having it played in the background.

I certainly think it makes sense to design legislation to collect royalties from radio stations whenever music is broadcast on the radio, rather than to sue hairdressers, bed & breakfasts, supermarkets and the like whenever a radio is played in what can arguably be construed a public performance.

In general broad law with clear principles is probably better than particular legislation for different technologies. US Copyright law appears to be particularly fluid in that it forever being amended and tweaked. What I am not happy about, is that the term of protection for creations by American artists has been lengthened a number of times retroactively. Lobbying is a legitimate democratic activity of course. Personally, I would prefer rules to be written coherently and clearly, based on simple principles.