33 Aligning With International Legislation The Ministry of Justice published a new draft bill to amend the Israeli Patents Law regarding Patent Term Extension (PTE). The purpose of this amendment is to allow drug manufacturing and stockpiling during the extension term, and to adapt the situation of Israeli companies to that of foreign companies in international markets. This new draft bill is motivated by the will to adjust the Israeli law in respect of the patent protection period to address changing market conditions, as these actions have been allowed in European law (Regulation (EU) 2019/933 of The European Parliament and of the Council ofMay 20, 2019). Why Israel’s IP is different When looking at Israel from the point of view of intellectual property and the legal activity associated with it, one may note an anomaly. The population of Israel in 2022 is a little less than 9 million, which is not different from countries like Switzerland, Austria, and Serbia. However, the level of legal activity in the IPfield isdisproportionatelygreater.Taking the number of patent applications filed in the United States, we can see that Israel in Switzerland are approximately the same (2,500 – 3,000 Applications) although Switzerland has a very strong pharmaceutical and chemical industry,which is very prolific in terms of patent protection, and as such, it would be expected to generate way more patents than Israel. Austria, on the other hand, only filed approximately 1,200 patent applications in the same period, and Serbia only 14. Israel, also known as the “start-up nation,” does not owe its activity in the IP field to large, multinational corporations, but rather to a myriad of companies, large and tiny, which operate in virtually every field of research. Some areas are those in which Israel leads, such as in cyber, medical devices, security, irrigation, and Desertech, but other flourishing fields include Foodtech, Biotech, and Agrotech, to mention but a few. This great variety presents challenges not only for the IP practitioner but also for the legal profession in general, which needs to assist those industries, specifically because of the country’s size. In a big country in which a large number of IP firms operate it is possible for a firm that wishes to specialize in a particular area to do so while maintaining a size that allows it to provide high-level services to its clients throughout the whole range of activities they need. However, in a small country like Israel, a boutique firm that wishes to specialize in a given field cannot efficiently provide the whole spectrum of services that the industry needs. As a result, Israel only has a tiny number of large IP firms
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