Who is an intellectual property attorney?
In Israel, intellectual property attorneys have several areas of expertise. The field of intellectual property relates to many laws that involve the whole array of intellectual property rights, as well as laws that determine what is proper (and legal) commercial conduct in Israel and around the world.
In some of those legal fields, multinational treaties were signed by Israel and by most of the world, such as the Paris Convention, the Madrid Agreement, the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), and more.
All these treaties were signed with the intention of establishing cross-border commercial conduct that would be adhered to anywhere in the world, including Israel. Based on that fact, it is possible to reasonably assume that the same principles that apply in your country in the fields of intellectual property, would also apply here in Israel. However- it is our strong recommendation to confirm any specific question with an Israeli intellectual property attorney. In other areas, in which cross-border treaties were not signed, the law differs in each country.
The most common area in which an Israeli intellectual property lawyer specialize is trademarks. Trademarks are intended to differentiate between the goods of different businesses, their names, symbols and more to avoid consumer confusion. The most basic type of trademark infringement occurs when a consumer is looking to purchase a certain product based on the good reputation of that product and mistakenly purchases a competing product (of a 2nd company) he mistakenly believed to be the original product, as a result of the unlawful use of the brand name by the 2nd company.
Every business accumulates intellectual property over time. This IP can be a client list, knowledge, a novel invention or design, a code, unique working procedures, information, expertise, reputation, and more. There may be different types of intellectual property in each business and each type can be protected in different ways, sometimes only one way, sometimes in more than one way.
Some types of IP are not recommended for registration. For example, the secret recipe of Coca-Cola. The secret formula/recipe is kept a secret and as long as the secret remains a secret, the Intellectual Property stays in the hands of Coca-Cola Inc. Had the company registered the recipe as a patent, then the company would have been required to reveal the recipe to the world to obtain the patent. And then, after 20 years, the patent would expire, and the recipe would be in the public domain. The decision to keep the recipe as a trade secret turned out to be very smart & successful.
In other cases, there are types of intellectual property from which economic profit cannot be derived without revealing the core of the invention in one way or another. In these cases, an intellectual property attorney should be consulted in order to determine the best way to protect that intellectual property.
The primary role of an intellectual property attorney is to identify the type of intellectual property and the optimal way to protect it, whether registered or not. Albeit clear in many cases, it is not always the case. Also, another role of an intellectual property attorney is to advise and guide the client/company on how to routinely conduct itself in a way that will streamline the preservation, documentation and creation of intellectual property on an ongoing basis without being too much of a burden on the company. In that respect, It is important to remember that a company's valuation depends, among other things, on the value of its intellectual property. This valuation is very relevant when trying to raise capital for a company.
In Israel, Some intellectual property attorneys provide rights registration services such as design and utility patent registration, trademark registration, copyrights and more, while other intellectual property attorneys focus solely on the enforcement aspect of such IP rights, be it via litigation or otherwise. And of course, there are also those who provide the full range of these services like our firm, Omri Segal and associates. Our firm is a one stop shop for your IP needs, from initial intellectual property strategy, rights registration, commercial agreements, and the protection/ enforcement of these rights against those who infringe said rights.
An intellectual property attorney can also usually suggest additional ways to protect the company's intellectual property, either by additional types of registration for the intellectual property or registration of strategic components as additional obstacles for your competitors' business activity.
In recent years, as online commerce has become a most significant revenue channel, intellectual property rights violations over the internet has also become more and more common. For more information of online brand protection, feel free to click here.
Another phenomenon becomes more and more frequent as well- companies and individuals send Cease & Desist letters and various threats and demands for monetary compensations which are not based on actual valid intellectual property rights.
Sending warning letters of this nature is obviously not legal and can often cause loss of revenues, delisting of online pages and more. A good intellectual property attorney can tell you whether you are actually eligible to send Cease & Desist letters which have merit, and can also advise on possible actions when you receive such cease & desist letters yourself.
In such cases, it is highly recommended to contact an intellectual property lawyer before taking any action. Only an intellectual property attorney knows how to examine whether the other party actually has the rights s/he claims to have and whether or not his/ her claims are reasonable.