"Photos of spy equipment show the words 'mini cloud' in Hebrew and the name of an Israeli manufacturer; Lebanese army says it found two Israeli spy devices in mountains near Beirut on Wednesday."
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/lebanese-television-shows-pictures-of-spy-equipment-with-hebrew-writing-1.331028
Are those the patents protecting said "spy equipment"? Experts says that the photos provided by the Lebanese army show a 30 years old equipment and the public records shows that a company by that name existed only in the 1970's.
Beam Systems Israel Ltd had 2 US patents:
| United States Patent |
3,950,757 |
| Blass |
April 13, 1976 |
Broadband whip antennas
A whip antenna with a substantially constant impedance over a broad band of radio frequencies includes a mounting section, a high-power-dissipation low-resistance assembly, a first whip section, a second whip section, and a high-impedance quarter-wavelength transformer section concentrically formed around the first whip section and extending from the resistance assembly to the junction of the first and second whip sections. The low-resistance termination is attached close to the base of the antenna and is transformed to a high resistance at the junction of the first and second whip sections at the frequency where the matching section length equals one quarter-wavelength. The resistive power loss only occurs over a limited band centered at the design frequency of the matching section. Instability caused by emplacement of a high-mass resistive termination towards the top of the complete antenna is thus avoided.
| Inventors: |
Blass; Judd (Herzliah Petuach, IL) |
| Assignee: |
Beam Systems Israel Ltd. (Nof Yam, IL) |
| Appl. No.: |
05/557,836 |
| Filed: |
March 12, 1975 |
| United States Patent |
4,028,704 |
| Blass |
June 7, 1977 |
Broadband ferrite transformer-fed whip antenna
The feed point of a whip antenna having a length less than one quarter-wavelength at the lowest frequency of operation is raised above a counterpoise ground plane by a short base sleeve. Gain over a 2.5:1 bandwidth of radio frequencies closely approaches the gain of a standard quarter-wavelength antenna without requiring use of power-dissipating resistance loading. A ferrite transformer at the whip antenna feedpoint is utilized to reduce the high anti-resonance impedance of the broadband whip antenna to the characteristic impedance of a coaxial cable transmission system and to minimize the VSWR thereof. The base sleeve raises the antenna resistance at the resonant frequency near the lower end of the bandwidth to make the transformer effective as an impedance matching element over the entire radio frequency band. A pair of the whip antennas are axially aligned and electrically coupled in series to realize a broadband dipole having increased gain. A pair of dipoles are energized in phased relationship to realize even higher gain and directivity.
| Inventors: |
Blass; Judd (Herzliah Petuach, IL) |
| Assignee: |
Beam Systems Israel Ltd. (Nof Yam, IL) |
| Appl. No.: |
05/605,338 |
| Filed: |
August 18, 1975
|
Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011 placed Israel in the 24th place with a GCI score of 4.91, an improvement of 3 places from the previous report.
Israel's position is highly boosted by the "Innovation and sophistication" factors in which Israel is ranked 11th !
Israel is ranked 43 out of 139 in Intellectual property protection, with its decent and effective court system and modern patent, trademark and copyright laws.
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalCompetitivenessReport_2010-11.pdf:
"Israel ranks 24th in this year’s GCI, up three positions after having suffered losses in competitiveness over the past years. The country’s main strength remains the
excellent—and improving—capacity for innovation (6th), which rests not only on highly innovative businesses but also on the availability of high-quality research institutions
and is reflected in a high number of patents. The favorable financial environment (14th) and, in particular, the availability of venture capital (10th) have further contributed to making Israel an innovation powerhouse. Future challenges to maintaining and improving national competitiveness relate to continued upgrading of institutions (33rd) and a renewed focus on raising the bar in terms of the quality of education. Low educational out-comes, in particular in the area of math and science, could, over the longer term, undermine the country’s innovation-driven competitiveness strategy if not addressed. As in previous years, the security situation remains fragile and imposes a high cost on business (73rd); room for improvement also remains" (pages 36-37)
12th pillar: Innovation
| INDICATOR |
RANK/139 |
| 12.01 Capacity for innovation |
7
|
| 12.02 Quality of scientific research institutions |
1
|
| 12.03 Company spending on R&D |
11
|
| 12.04 University-industry collaboration in R&D |
14
|
| 12.05 Gov’t procurement of advanced tech products |
20
|
| 12.06 Availability of scientists and engineers |
17
|
| 12.07 Utility patents per million population |
4
|
In a circular issued by the IPA the commissioner informed that it is not possible any more to incorporate information and materials by reference.
The circular was issued since different examiners practices that caused confusion.
It is now necessary to delete the term "incorporated by reference" from the applications and to amend the applications so that the material and information relevant will be added to the background of the invention.
The IPA has announced a new fast track prosecution for applicants filing their priority application in Israel.
Starting from January 1st 2011 the pilot program will be available allowing a search report and first office action within 3 months.
Applicants will need to state that the application is the first filed and that they intend to file abroad claiming the benefit of the Israeli priority application.
As applications in Israel usually filed in English (even by Israeli applicants) and due to the fact that the IPA is about to become a International Search Authority (PCT) – this pilot program have benefits to international applicants.
The Israeli Patent Authority announced a new fast track for examining "green" technologies patents applications.
There's no accurate definition for what is a "green" technologies application, however the application must help to preserve/improve the quality of the environment, to mitigate global warming factors, to reduce air or water pollution, to promote non-polluting agriculture, to save energy, to facilitate recycling, to enhance resource management, etc.
The Israeli Patent Authority offers the following incentive – if the applicant convinces the examiner that his application is a "green" application, the Israeli Patent Authority will examine the application out of queue and hence, the application should be examined within 3 months from the day the application has been marked as a "green" application. If the examiner denies the request, one can file an appeal.
The request by the applicant can be made on or after the filing and the procedure is open to any kind of application (basic, PCT national phase etc).
By doing so the Israeli Patent Authority joins the other patent authorities around the world providing fast track to "green" technology patent application – USA, UK, Australia, Japan and South Korea.
Let’s start with some interesting statistics provided by the world intellectual property office (
WIPO):
Israel ranks 17 in the world for patent filings in its national office. So perhaps the canny Israeli entrepeneur is responsible? Apparently not – the great majority of patents filed in the Israeli Patent Authorityare actually filed from abroad!! (96.6% in 2006 – see
chart below).
More than 95% of the patent applications in Israel are filed by foreign applicants, indicating that something is convincing a large group of IP holders to file in Israel. So why are so many entities filing in Israel? Despite a healthy economy which actually puts Israel at #8 worldwide in terms of growth (chart below), the relatively tiny population precludes a large total GDP, which in total size ranks about #50 (IMF, World Bank, CIA factbook) behind such powerhouses as Algeria, Pakistan, Romania, Nigeria, and Bangladesh.
Patenting in Israel thus apparently doesn’t have to do with sales in Israel. One basic reason has to do with protecting/preventing exports from Israel. For example, Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical is the largest generic drug company in the world; Teva does not require an IL patent to sell in the US, but it does benefit from protection in Israel to manufacture in Israel. This would prevent (for example) a rival from setting up shop across the road from Teva, hiring half of Teva’s workers for twice the pay, and churning out copies of Teva’s generics. Further, a Roche IL patent stake would prevent Teva from producing in Israel a Roche drug (for example) that’s still protected in the US, and then selling it everywhere in the world that Roche doesn’t hold patents – or more insidiously, from selling to parallel importers. Similarly, due to Intel’s four design facilities and two fabrication plants in Israel, computer processor technologies are ostensibly heavily patented in Israel likewise. Other large exports include software, medical devices, and military hardware.
A short list of reasons to patent in Israel can be found in our last article regarding
Cleantech in Israel.
One might suppose that another reason to patent in Israel is to prevent/protect IP development in Israel, which in addition to the aforementioned global-scale manufacturing plants, also has a significant R&D presence. This may well be the case, but the reasoning would appear to be compromised by the unusual breadth of the Israel research exemption, which shares with New Zealand alone the provision that any IP-protected matter whatsoever (not just pharmaceuticals) may be produced for research purposes.
All of the charts and statistics were extracted from WIPO's website.
For further information in this matter, please contact us.
Given its sunny climate (yearly average of about 5.5 KwH/m
2/day insolation), lack of local oil and scarce water, political factors (unwillingness and/or inability to procure Arab oil as an energy source, unwillingness to use nuclear sources for energy production), and educated population (1.35% PhD/scientists), Israel seems to be fertile ground for cleantech developments. Some early success was recorded by Luz, who developed a solar thermal system in the Negev that led to six 30 MW power plants, installed in California. Unfortunately Luz went bankrupt after the relaxation of the OPEC embargo of the 70's, but now have resurfaced as
'Luz II', a subsidiary of BrightSource energy. They dedicated their Solar Energy Development Center (SEDC) in the Negev's
Rotem Industrial Park in 2008, a 5MW facility dedicated to R&D for a 'power tower'.
