Written by: Ephraim Zachary Heiliczer, Ph.D.
Israel continues to punch above its weight as a global innovation hub particularly in cybersecurity, medical devices, and defense. At the start of 2026, the story is less about headline reform and more about continued refinement: faster, more predictable, and more closely aligned with major jurisdictions. For companies building global protection strategies, Israel is not merely a “check-the-box” jurisdiction. It is a serious venue for enforcing rights, especially in life sciences, software-adjacent technologies, medical devices, and other innovation-intensive sectors where speed and coordination across jurisdictions matter.
Israel should be viewed not only as an “innovation hub” but as a jurisdiction where commercially significant R&D and commercialization decisions occur. Israel combines substantial multinational R&D activity with a dense startup ecosystem and a strong track record of technology-driven transactions, which can make local patents relevant for due diligence, partnering, licensing, and post-acquisition enforcement.
Israel is also widely recognized for defense and security-related innovation and procurement. In areas such as cybersecurity, communications, sensing, autonomy, and imaging, government and defense-industry stakeholders are often active participants through procurement and related programs. Finally, Israel is making significant investments in quantum technologies across academia and industry, increasing the likelihood that future competitors, collaborators, or licensees may be Israel-based, making local patent protection strategically useful.
This 2026 outlook builds on what 2025 demonstrated and highlights what to watch next, including one area that still requires disciplined process: the duty of disclosure. The bottom line is positive. Israel is well positioned for applicants who want to move efficiently to grant, leverage work done abroad, and secure exclusivity that supports investment, partnerships, and commercialization.
AI inventorship and the significance of DABUS
On 31 December 2025, the Tel Aviv Yafo District Court held that an AI system cannot be named an “inventor” under current Israeli patent law, affirming the Patent Registrar’s refusal to accept applications listing DABUS as the sole inventor.
While often framed as “rejecting AI inventors” the decision is primarily a statutory-interpretation holding: Patent Law’s ownership framework presumes an inventor who is a human legal actor. The court relied on the definition of “owner of an invention” (inventor or those deriving rights by law or assignment) and on provisions that presuppose human capacity (including heirs and the right to be recorded). Because a machine cannot be the legal source of an assignment, the asserted chain of title failed. The ruling is therefore pro-certainty: it protects predictable title, licensing, and enforcement in an international portfolio context. Any shift toward AI inventorship, the court indicated, is for the legislature rather than judicial re-interpretation. Further review in 2026 remains possible, but for now the position is clear, stable, and workable.
Protecting AI-enabled inventions in Israel
Israel’s refusal to recognize AI as an inventor should not be confused with hostility to AI innovation. Israel’s patent system remains pragmatic, examination-driven, and increasingly efficiency-oriented.
AI-enabled inventions can be well suited to protection in Israel when claims are tied to a clear technical contribution and measurable technical effect, such as improved detection, reduced latency, improved image reconstruction, stronger cybersecurity classification, enhanced signal processing, optimized communications, or improved device control. When claims connect models, training, or deployment architectures to concrete system functionality, Israel can offer enforceable rights on a relatively fast and cost-controlled timeline, especially when prosecution is coordinated with anchor jurisdictions and leveraged through Section 17(c).
Section 17(c) and prosecution efficiency
One of Israel’s most underappreciated advantages is Section 17(c) of the Israel Patent Law, which enables applicants, in appropriate cases, to leverage grant in a key foreign jurisdiction to streamline prosecution in Israel. In 2025, we saw increased practical success using Section 17(c) to accelerate prosecution and reduce the friction points that often arise in fully independent examination. In 2026, we expect Section 17(c) to remain a central coordination mechanism for applicants running global portfolios, particularly where Israel is prosecuted in parallel with the US and EPO.
A recent proposal may make the use of Section 17(c) even more user-friendly by allowing applicants to amend foreign claims, such as method of treatment claims and use-type claims, to conform with Israeli practice. This change would be particularly beneficial for pharmaceutical and medical device applicants seeking to rely on US patents for purposes of Section 17(c) in Israel.
Israel also offers two structural advantages for global portfolio management:
- No renewal fees until allowance: Renewal fees are generally not due until the application is allowed (and then become due for past periods). This defers significant costs and focus on applications that are moving toward grant compared with jurisdictions where annuities accrue on fixed schedules regardless of prosecution status.
- Possible move toward “request for examination”: Israel is considering an applicant-driven request-for-examination model. If implemented, it could reduce administrative cycles and make timing and budgeting more predictable, especially when coordinating Israel with the US and EPO.
A Section 17(c)-oriented approach has an important enforcement benefit. It encourages claim sets in Israel aligned with major jurisdictions, reducing unnecessary divergence and improving readiness if the patent later needs to be asserted or defended.
From a budgeting perspective, Israel can be a relatively cost-efficient “add-on” jurisdiction, particularly where Section 17(c) is available and the Israeli claims can be coordinated with an issued US or EP counterpart, which can reduce the extent of substantive back-and-forth during examination.
Grace period: Streamlining on the horizon
Grace period reform remains one of the most commercially meaningful proposed changes in Israel. Current law provides a limited grace period in specific circumstances (for example, certain disclosures connected to exhibitions or publications under defined statutory conditions).
In 2025, momentum continued behind proposals to adopt a clearer and broader grace period, commonly framed as a 12-month grace period for certain inventor-originated disclosures, similar to the US approach. If enacted, this would materially reduce novelty risk for startups, universities, and fast-moving R&D teams that disclose results early in fundraising, partnering, or academic publication. In 2026, this remains a key policy area to watch because it would directly affect filing triage, publication strategy, and cross-border disclosure risk management.
We are also actively litigating a pending matter expected to clarify how the current grace period is applied in practice. While outcomes will remain fact-specific and driven by the statutory conditions, practice appears to be moving toward clearer guardrails and fewer avoidable novelty traps. The strategic message is not “disclose freely,” but rather that Israel is moving in a more practical direction for real-world innovation cycles, making it a safer component of a global filing strategy.
Life sciences perspectives
Israel’s patent term extension regime remains detailed and closely tied to regulatory milestones and reference jurisdictions. While technically demanding, it continues to reward early planning and careful coordination between regulatory and patent strategies.
In biotechnology, including antibody-related inventions, examination standards remain rigorous but increasingly predictable. Clearer expectations around support, characterization, and claim structure allow applicants who invest in robust specifications and sensible fallback positions to obtain meaningful protection.
Israeli practice has been notably sensitive to antibody and other sequence-variant claims defined by percentage identity or homology, particularly in unpredictable fields. Because broad identity-based claiming can shift undue screening burdens to the skilled person, a plausible direction is a more structured, and potentially more flexible, approach where broader variant scope is anchored in clear alignment methodology, defined motifs/epitopes, and functional screening criteria, keeping claim breadth commensurate with what is enabled and supported.
Disclosure obligations and prosecution discipline
The strongest reason to be careful in Israel is also the most important legal takeaway from recent Supreme Court jurisprudence: the duty of disclosure is a serious compliance obligation, mishandling it can have consequences beyond validity challenges.
The Supreme Court’s guidance underscores that misleading conduct toward the Patent Office can create significant downstream exposure. This is not a reason to avoid Israel. It is a reason to treat Israel like the main jurisdictions, with the same discipline and governance.
Practically, applicants should:
- Run a proactive disclosure review program: to identify, track, and submit relevant prior art and parallel-prosecution developments in a timely and defensible manner.
- Align Israeli claims with key jurisdictions via Section 17(c) wherever possible: reducing inconsistency risk and improving defensibility of the file history.
- Draft and prosecute with future disputes in mind: aiming for a clean, coherent prosecution record and well-supported claims.
Conclusion: A high-value jurisdiction for strategic filers
At the start of 2026, Israel’s patent system reflects a steady emphasis on speed, coherence, and legal certainty. The DABUS decision reinforces a clear inventorship framework without limiting protection for advanced technologies. Section 17(c), when used deliberately, supports efficient and coordinated prosecution. Developments around grace periods and examination practice suggest a system that is increasingly responsive to commercial realities.
Disclosure discipline is the key caution, but it is manageable with the right systems, proactive review, and careful prosecution. Approach Israel as a coordinated part of the global portfolio, not an afterthought, and the system can deliver speed, leverage, and enforceable rights in one of the world’s most innovation-dense markets in 2026.
