Recent Amendments to the Israeli Trade Marks Ordinance

Amendments to the Trade Marks Ordinance were recently published. Some of the amendments, two of which are of importance, are already effective, as follows:

Registrations are now valid for 10 years:
Registrations issued on or after August 6, 2003, shall be valid for a period of 10 years calculated from the application date (instead of 7 years under the old law).

Conflicting Applications:
Proceedings under Section 29 (Rival Applications Proceedings between identical or confusingly applications), will only be applied if the later application was filed before a Notice of Acceptance has been issued in respect of the earlier application (until now such proceedings were applied also after publication of the first application).

The remaining amendments are mainly intended to bring the Trade Marks Ordinance into accord with the provisions of the Madrid Protocol, which Israel is expected to join in the near future. These amendments will only become effective after the Minister of Justice publishes the official Notice informing that Israel has joined the protocol.