Registering a Trademark in Israel
Trademarks are registered in Israel by the Patents Authority, a recently created independent agency operating under the Ministry of Justice, which replaces the former Patents, Designs and Trademarks Department of the Ministry.
A trademark registration application must be submitted to the Patent Authority in the form set out in the Trademark regulations. The application contains details of the claimant and specimens of the Mark. The application must set out the goods or services for which the registration is requested. A separate application is required for each of the 45 classes of goods and services – as per the Nice classifications - under which the applicant may wish to obtain protection.
In the first instance, an examiner from the Authority, acting for the Registrar, examines the application in light of the law and issues a decision stating whether the mark is to be accepted for registration or rejected. A typical ground for rejection is confusing similarity with an existing mark. Other grounds also exist. The Registrar may also condition acceptance of the application upon a waiver by the applicant of a claim to exclusive use of any generic or descriptive terms forming part of the mark. The normal form of such waiver is: "registration of the mark will not grant exclusive use of the word (the generic or descriptive term) except in the combination of the mark".
If accepted for registration by the Registrar, the mark is then published in the official Trademarks Journal. Any member of the public may file an opposition to the application within 90 days of the publication. If an opposition is filed, an adversarial proceeding is conducted before the registrar, who issues his ruling. The ruling may be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Under Israeli law, a trademark registration is valid for ten years from the date of application. The registration may be renewed for further periods of 14 years each renewal.
In the normal course of events, registration may take between nine to 15 months from the date of application. An expedited examination may be requested on special grounds, typically where there is already a claimed infringement or imminent infringement. If an opposition is filed, the timeframe for issuance of the mark will be considerably longer than above.
Application and registration fees currently (March 2009) total around NIS 1400 (about $350). The fee for an expedited examination is NIS 550 (about $115).Renewal fees are NIS 2550 (about $640). Other fees are payable for filing of an opposition and other actions.
Israel is a member of the Paris Treaty. Therefore, where an applicant has filed an application in a treaty member state within the six months preceding his application in Israel, and where a competing application for the same mark is filed by another party, the date of that earlier member state application will be considered as the relevant date for the purposes of deciding priority between the two applications.
Israel is a signatory to the Madrid Protocol. In line therewith, the Madrid Protocol regulations came into effect at the beginning of 2007. Under these regulations, it shoulf be possible in the future to submit international applications under the protocol through the Israel Trade Mark office, although this will only happen when the Trademark office's new website is fully functional and after the Government finally ratifies the protocol. Although the use of the protocol to file concurrent multi-country applications has obvious advantages, it is also important to weigh the downside of this procedure, particularly the danger that rejection of the "home" application will invalidate all other applications.
