"The Expansion of the ISO standards framework"
- A review of the various opinions, as well as the articles, raises another point of similarity that was not mentioned in the plaintiffs' summaries - the argument that the expansion required for quality management of global organizations and the aforementioned ISO standards should be done through the "system approach" or "system thinking". The purpose of this approach, in summary, is to focus on the relationship between the components of a system and their joint action, as distinct from focusing on the components themselves (see, for example, the review in the defendants' article, at paragraph 2.5). Since there is a certain development here of the idea of the need to expand the process approach, I have found it necessary to address this as well, briefly.
First, even this argument, although slightly more detailed than the argument of the very need to expand the process approach, is clearly only an idea. It is not concrete enough to crystallize into a way of expression protected by copyright. Thus, for example, it does not include any detail explaining how to adopt and implement the systemic approach, and it is clear that when we are dealing with the approach and the way of thinking, its individual implementation can be carried out in many ways. In this context, I will refer to what was stated in Dr. Vaknin's own opinion (at p. 40), who notes that the defendants' article does not apply the systemic analysis and that "the authors did not succeed in applying in their article the systemic thinking that they preach, as the basis of their innovation." These words clearly illustrate that we are dealing at most with a general idea.
Second, this argument is already found in defendant 1's research proposal from January 2021 (long before defendant 2's access to articles 8 and 9) as can be seen from its title: "A Model for a Global Quality Management System in SOS Systems Influenced by the Systems Approach/Systems Thinking." It also appears in the presentation of the results of the pilot study, which was presented by defendant 1 to the examiners committee on June 20, 2021 (about two months before the transfer of articles 8 and 9 from the plaintiff to defendant 2) - as can be seen from Appendix 2 to the defendants' affidavits (see p. 17, which attests to the date of receipt of the document, and p. 29 of paragraph 7, where the heading: System Thinking approach as a framework for G-QMS) is written).