America-Israel Patent Law Blog

So a news item last week
in the patent world was that Saudi Arabia
has now joined the Patent Cooperation Treaty (or in the formal language of
the PCT, it has now become a PCT contracting state).  Amazingly, the ILPTO saw fit to send out its
own email announcement about this and to post an item about this on
its website.  I say “amazingly”
because we all know that there will probably be a Jewish Pope before the Saudis
allow national phase entry of an Israeli applicant’s PCT application, so it’s
hard to fathom why the ILPTO is excited about the Saudi PCT accession.  Don’t believe me?  Check out this news
story about the kingdom’s blocking access to The Jerusalem Post’s website.  Bottom line: Israeli entities that need to
file in Saudi Arabia or other countries that are hostile to Israel (but are willing to adopt Israeli technology) will
continue to need to play the part of Clark Kent for their patent application
filings.