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Just over a year ago, I was entrusted with directing the US operations of JMB Davis Ben-David. However, as our firm is based in Israel, I was to do this from my desk in Jerusalem, some 7,000 miles away from the US. Given the way intellectual property law is traditionally practiced globally, this was not an immediately obvious service for our firm to provide.  After all, how can an IP firm located outside the US represent a client before the USPTO?! 

In retrospect, this decision was highly logical and helpful, both to our domestic clients and to many of our overseas clients. Our experienced team includes several US-licensed patent attorneys and agents, some of whom worked at US law firms before moving to Israel; and our clients are continually seeking to decrease costs, and increase speed and efficiency.  But still, did it really make sense for clients to use an Israel-based firm to represent them or their clients before the USPTO?! 

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“A business strategy without an IP strategy is no strategy”. These were the words with which Frans van Houten, the CEO of Philips started the by now bi-annual two day crash course in monetization of IP, particularly patents. For the uninitiated, the ‘crash course’ to which I refer was the IP Business Congress (IPBC) 2014 in Amsterdam, Holland, organized by the irrepressible Joff Wild, editor of the IAM (Intellectual Asset Magazine).

For those of you who were not able to attend this year’s Congress or have never been to this Congress, let me take this opportunity to fill you in on the goings on.  (more…)

There is an ever-growing number of multinationals who are benefitting from having a presence in Israel. They range from the unsurprising US-based corporations such as Intel, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Philips, Pfizer and Google to corporations from the Far East such as Samsung, Toshiba and Sony, and include other corporations from China, for example, such as Huawei and xiaomi.com.  (more…)

It was a number of years ago, when visiting a location in the Negev desert in the south of Israel, that I really started to understand Israel’s strategic location in this part of the World, and not just as the bread basket of the ancient Near East and the home of cultivated crops (particularly wheat). I was with a group tour to a place called Avdat which was a fortress town along the ancient Nabataean spice route extending from Yemen, across the Arabian peninsula and through to the Mediterranean ports, from which the sought after spices such as myrrh and frankincense would be shipped for sale to Europe. (more…)

In the excitement of rushing off to the Israel Dealmakers Summit in New York at the beginning of March, one might have thought that I had forgotten about the wonderful seminar staged by the IVC in Tel Aviv “Doing Business in China” at the end of the previous week. I hadn’t. But China, in many ways, is the other end of the spectrum from Israel, and requires a little bit more thinking about. The larger something is, the greater the distance required in order to stand back and consider it so as to gain proper perspective.

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I have just returned from two days in New York at the Israel Dealmakers Summit. In its 7th year, this was an event orchestrated by Landmark Ventures. Almost to perfection, I might add. It was an event quite unlike any other that I have had the privilege of attending. I normally go to conferences with my colleagues in the IP field from around the world, prearranging as many networking meetings as possible. Only then do I feel that I have used my time well. This time however, I didn’t know whether the individuals that I would end up talking to would be fresh entrepreneurs, successful post startup serial entrepreneurs, investors, crowd funders, venture capitalists or other assorted service providers. I was there to listen, learn, and go wherever the flow would take me. (more…)

It is nearly 30 years since I entered the field of intellectual property. Back in the mid ‘80’s the concept of patents and trademarks was in its infancy in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Patent Office of the PRC, the predecessor of SIPO (State Intellectual Property Office of China), having been founded in 1980. At that time, there was a single IP firm in the PRC, and most of the Western world looked askance at the state of IP rights in China. Now seems like a good time to look back at the past 30 years—what was and what we have learned, as we begin to look forward to a very different China and IP environment. (more…)

In their upcoming seminar, the professionals of JMB Davis Ben-David will be discussing the subject of Growing Your Business with Patents. This pretty much sums up the approach of our team, who see the business interests of the client as the driver of its patenting activities, the two being inextricably intertwined. Patents are seen as a ‘must have’ asset for a business, even when the business managers or owners don’t fully understand why this is so. However, it is more than simple market wisdom, (some might say dogma); there are very good reasons for this. (more…)

“Do you know how much money we spent on patents last year?”

This is a common opener to a panic attack, shortly before all the money that has been invested, is shown to be a waste, as the CEO or Chief Legal Counsel, having no idea why their company was filing patents in the first place, decides to abandon all of their patent applications and to cease maintenance payments on their granted patents. (more…)