The Israeli Patent Registrar recently ruled that business methods are not patentable under Israeli law. The Registrar also clarified that computer related inventions are patentable only if they are an integral part of a physical system (according to the famous US Diehr doctrine), and, thus, declined to adopt the broad interpretation in the US following the State Street Bank case. Thus, the Registrar specifically clarified that e-commerce methods are not patentable in Israel.
The decision is critical to internet companies which attempt to obtain patent protection for their business methods in Israel, and it is interesting to see whether anyone will attempt to overturn the Registrar's decision in the Supreme Court.
A detailed overview of the decision is available in the section about Israeli case law in our website.
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