With all due respect, this is not how a claim of copying can be substantiated.
- In this context, it is important to mention basic concepts. Expert opinions, certainly in scope and complexity as submitted in this case, do not stand on their own. A litigant who wishes to rely on these opinions is required to specify in his summaries how the opinion substantiates our claim. It is not enough to refer to the "bottom line" of the opinion, nor even a casual reference to many pages of it. Rather, it is also necessary to clarify the manner in which the opinion is conducted, and in our case it was necessary to explain, with points or main examples from the opinion, how the analysis that was conducted supports the conclusions of the author of the opinion. For our purposes, the words of the Honorable Justice Grosskopf in the close context of Other Municipality Applications 9145/18 Mazor A Service for the Repair and Renovation of Household Electrical Appliances in a Tax Appeal v. Service Plus in a Tax Appeal [Nevo] (January 24, 2021) at paragraph 22 (the words were said there in the context of proof of monetary relief, but they correspond to the proof of each element that the opinion was intended to establish):
"The proof of the monetary relief claimed by the plaintiff must be based on two complementary foundations that the plaintiff is required to lay before the court: the first is a concrete evidentiary foundation, which factually establishes the data on which the demand for relief is based. This foundation must consist of documents, evidence, and professional opinions that show what actually happened: receipts attesting to the expenses incurred by the plaintiff; documents showing the income that was withheld from him; Opinions attesting to the change in the value of his assets, etc. (hereinafter: the evidentiary basis). The second is an analysis of the evidentiary foundation that he laid before the court, linking it to the cause of action. In other words, the plaintiff must clarify, through witnesses, experts and summaries how the alleged causes of action, and the concrete evidentiary basis that was presented, establish his right to receive the requested remedy (hereinafter: the analytical analysis)."
- In our case, some of the opinions were accompanied by comparison tables between the plaintiff's research and the defendants' article, which were spread together over dozens of pages and which were intended to establish the existence of a substantial similarity between them. In their summaries (in section 25.9), the plaintiffs claimed that these tables "present precise segmentations that prove the systematic consistency identified between the content unitsfrom the plaintiff's sources, with an accurate reference to the sources - topics, chapters, sections and pages." However, beyond this general statement, the plaintiffs sufficed with referring to a few examples that they claim indicate the same congruence - examples that I will examine below.
- Admittedly, the plaintiffs should not be expected to incorporate all the examples from the opinion in the summaries, which indicate a "systematic congruence" between the plaintiff's articles and the defendants' statements. However, it is possible and should be expected that concrete examples will be brought and analyzed in the summaries that indicate some protected component in the plaintiff's research, which the defendants copied into their own research and presented as a product that they independently
Thus, for example, when it is claimed that a chart was copied , a diagram should be presented in the summaries or referred to concretely, and the similarities between it and the diagram in the plaintiff's study should be explained. However, no such chart was presented. When it is claimed that a model was copied, it must be presented concretely, and the similarities between it and a model in the plaintiff's study should be pointed out. However, no model was presented in the summaries. And so on. For examples of how a plaintiff is required to detail the similarities and present them to the court for systematic examination, see, for example, the rulings in the Hershko, Motsafi and Pikovsky case described above. In all those cases, concrete alleged similarities were presented to the court, which were examined in the judgment one by one.