Article 28 of the Iranian Patent Law contains prohibitions on the patenting of, inter alia, inventions which are for "pharmaceutical arrangements". Over the years the patent office has not been entirely consistent in its application of this provision. A decision of the General Board of the Supreme Court has now addressed this issue. In its decision, which is expressly stated to be binding on all branches of the Supreme Court and on all lower courts, the General Board held that there was a difference between an unpatentable "arrangement" and a composition or a method for manufacturing a pharmaceutical product and that consequently pharmaceutical compositions and methods of making pharmaceutical products are patentable.