Outline: - the extra time required for a generic producer to obtain the approval of the sale of a product covered by a regulatory patent is a "de-facto" extension of the patent term; - the law includes several more pages extending the term of patents covering pharmaceuticals and veterinary medicines in Israel for up to five years, provided that it is no more than fourteen years after the patentee first received the right to sell overseas; - while the patent term extension afforded by the present law is not equal to that in the USA or the EC, it should be pointed out that there is no international agreement of how long a patent term extension is supposed to be;.