In my previous post I mentioned the lack of sufficient technical support for the Israel PTO's electronic filing system. Case in point, a new one for me: the system won't let me file a request under section 17(c) of the statute, the section that says an application can be allowed on the basis of a corresponding patent in certain jurisdictions if each claim of the Israel patent is identical to one of the claims of the foreign patent. But there's no apparent reason why this should be so in this case.
In greater detail: early this morning, before ILPTO opening hours, I responded to an office action, by relating to the prior art rejections raised by the examiner. In the response I also asked that the application be accepted under section 17(c) of the statute, since the claims are identical to those of a corresponding granted European patent. But the EFS is poorly designed in this regard. When filing by Israel EFS, first one has to choose from a finite list the type of filing he wishes to submit (in this case, response to a form 26 office action), then one enters the relevant application number, then the system checks to make sure one is allowed to file such a response at this stage of the prosecution, and if the system says that such a response is permissible, then one is given a finite list of choices of types of documents to upload: response to OA, clean claims, marked claims, clean spec, marked spec, prior art documents, etc. When making a 17(c) request, the applicant is supposed to provide the ILPTO with a copy of the foreign patent on which the request is based, but "corresponding foreign patent document" is not among the finite choices available when submitting a response to a form 26 office action. Instead, what one has to do is upload the all the documents for the response, click on "create basket of documents to be file", and then start the whole operation again, this time choosing "17(c) request during substantive examination" (as opposed to "17(c) request during formal examination"), then entering the application number, then uploading the 17(c) request itself and the corresponding foreign patent, as well as the claims if the claims have not already been amended to correspond to the foreign patent claims. Then one clicks "create basket", and then one submits the whole kit and kaboodle, two "baskets" at once for the same application.
Except in my case, when I choose "17(c) request during substantive examination" and then enter the application number, the system says, "nyeah nyeah nyeah the system status doesn't allow you to file that now!"
So instead of uploading the foreign patent in the 17(c) request template, I went back to my original "basket", viz. the OA response, and uploaded it as a "citation". I've no idea if the examiner will notice it, so I'll leave the examiner a voice message explaining the situation.
Of course, why we should be required to upload the foreign patent at all is a bit of a mystery, seeing as how examiners routinely find and download foreign patents as prior art.
I'll also contact the new tech support person to explain the problem and find out why the system is screwy in this way.