Section 5, clauses 44-48 in the Israeli Patent Law enables an applicant having a granted patent to file one or more "supplementary patents" associated with the original granted patent, if the supplementary patent discloses an improvement of the invention claimed in the original patent.

A supplementary patent does not require having an inventive step or even novelty over the original granted patent it is associated with, and therefore makes it easier for the applicant to add new embodiments to his inventions without having to go through prosecution again.

An original granted patent may have multiple supplementary patents associated therewith and the law does not limit the number of associated supplementary patents that can be filed.

There are however several limitation to supplementary patents:

1. They have to include patentable subject matter (according to Israeli definitions and requirements).
2. An application filed prior to the filing or priority date of a granted patent cannot be filed later on as a supplementary patent of the granted patent.

The option of filing supplementary patents is often overlooked by applicants, who often continue to improve their inventions after their patents are already granted. Unfortunately, patent attorneys often overlook this option as well and miss out a great opportunity for their clients to protect improved embodiments of their invention, without having to go through the tedious and expensive prosecution process, provided, of course, that there are little chances for the improvements to be considered novel or non-obvious under the original patent.

Another important advantage of supplementary patents is that they receive the same grant period as their associated original patent and hence improve chances for litigating infringers since, combined with the original patent, they specify more embodiments and options for applying the invention.