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Israel

Revision as of 18:18, 11 November 2009 by Ciaran (talk | contribs) (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.)
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Isreal's patent office opened a consultation on software patents in November 2009. The deadline for submissions is 15 February 2010.

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."

Recent past

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.

A document dated May 2008[1] mentions the following events:

  • A year and a half ago (thus around December 2006), there was an important a decision by the . The document seems to say that this decision changed Israeli Patent Office's (IPO) policy and stopped the granting of software patents and business method patents.
  • Following "a debate in a public forum", the IPO is now allowing (some? all?) software patents, but is still not granting business method patents.

External links