America-Israel Patent Law Blog

A major snowstorm arrived along the east coast of the USA over the weekend, dumping more snow than the "Snowmaggedon" that struck in 2010.  The USPTO was closed yesterday and will evidently be closed again today.

Jerusalem is also subject to snow from time to time. We wrote about the snow in January 2013 that resulted in a closure of the ILPTO, except for the filing of papers – as if couriers carrying new patent applications would fare better on unplowed roads than ILPTO employees.  (A similar thing happened last year on Memorial Day, when the ILPTO announced a closure for staff but not for filers.)

Evidently, the ILPTO is slowly learning from its mistakes: this week there's the potential for snow in Jerusalem, although as of this writing it hasn't materialized.  And this time around, the ILPTO announced that if the office closes because of snow, it won't be open for the filing of documents either, i.e. applicants will get a day's extension for Israel-related filings.  

As appreciated as this improvement is, there's one more improvement we hope the ILPTO will make in future: the next time this happens, the ILPTO should publish the announcement on its website, rather than just by email to those on its email distribution list.