To Have Your Cake And Eat It: Accelerating Design Examination While Keeping Secrets – Secret

Pendency of Design Applications

The duration of a design application examination by the Israel Patents Office is usually 6 months to 1 year, representing the time between filing the application and the applicant's ability to enforce registered design rights. This delay is acceptable in most cases, as it takes time for a product to enter the marketplace and then additional time for unauthorized copies to appear, such that an ability to enforce approximately one year after application is sufficient.

Accelerated Examination

However, in some situations, even this time period is too long and may result in harm to the rights of the design owner, and accelerating the examination process is necessary to protect those rights. One such situation is when a party who is not the applicant has begun exploiting or making use of the design. In such a situation, the Applicant can file with the Israel Patent Office a request for accelerated examination of the design