Israel

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Israel's patent office opened a consultation on software patents in November 2009. The deadline for submissions is 15 February 2010:

1 2010 consultation
- 1.1 Submissions
2 Legislation
3 September 2006: software patents abolished
4 Software patents returning?
5 Case law
6 External links
- 6.1 Possibly-interesting, to be reviewed

[edit] 2010 consultation

(in Hebrew) The consultation (^[?] English translations: Google, Babelfish)
- This doesn't seem to be translated into Arabic or English.
news.swpat.org: Israel: one month to end software patents
news.swpat.org: Israel in danger of software patents
(in Hebrew) Hamakor's discussion during the drafting of their brief (^[?] English translations: Google, Babelfish)

[edit] Submissions

Hamakor (Israeli Free Software Society), see full text.

[edit] Legislation

Section 3 of the Israeli Patents Law defines what types of innovations are patentable subject matter. It says:

"3. An invention, whether a product or a process in any field of technology, which is new and useful and capable of industrial application and which involves an inventive step - is a patentable invention."

This text was brought into force on in January 2000 in reaction to the TRIPS treaty.

There is a lot of discussion about the obviously problematic term "technology", and there is also a lot of discussion with the term "per se" (maybe this is somewhere else in the Israeli law books).

[edit] September 2006: software patents abolished

In September 2006, the Commissioner of Patents in Israel invalidated a patent titled "Method of Promoting the Sale of Goods and/or Services". All parties agreed that this was a business method patent.

The patent was rejected by the Commissioner on the grounds that it failed to meet the "field of technology" requirement of the Israeli Patents Law.

Commentators Hausman and Berdugo (patent lawyers?) note that the Commissioner did say patents could be granted on "patentable hardware component and a non-patentable software component", but this confirmation is inconsequential. It just means that hardware innovations are patentable, and if you add some software, the patentability of the hardware innovation isn't affected.

[edit] Software patents returning?

In response to the abolition of software patents, a pro-software-patent lobby group, AIPPI organised a public meeting with the Commissioner and Ehud Hausman (a patent lawyer). Hausman reported in May 2008 that the IPO is now allowing (some? all?) software patents (but is still not granting business method patents).

[edit] Case law

A 2009 presentation by the IPO mentions the case of patent 142049, which was a patent on displaying thumbnail on a website, which was rejected in 2005 by the IPO's Hearing Office when reexamined. The 131733 patent, rejected in September 2006 is an example of a business method patent being rejected by the IPO.

There is also the 1994 decision (thus based on the old, pre-2000 law) of the Jerusalem District Court, C.A. 23/94 (Jerusalem) United Technologies Corporation v. The Registrar of Patents, Designs and Trademarks, District Court Decisions, Vol. 26 (8), 729: