The Israel Patent Office (ILPO) has published a Registrar's Notice stating that its Designs Department is joining the WIPO Digital Access Service (DAS) for industrial design applications, both as a depositing office and an accessing office, with effect from 1 July 2020.

The DAS is a service provided by WIPO allowing priority documents to be securely exchanged between participating IP offices.

As a depositing office, the ILPO will deposit certified copies of priority documents of design applications filed on and after 1 July 1 2020, and as an accessing office, it will retrieve priority documents available through the service for applications whose priority claim has not expired by 1 July 2020.

The ILPO is joining 11 offices that have already joined DAS, including the US Patent and Trademark Office, China National Intellectual Property Administration, Indian Patent Office, Japan Patent Office and Korean Intellectual Property Office.

By Sa’ar Alon, Partner and Head of the Designs Practice at Reinhold Cohn Group in Tel Aviv