Dear Clients and Colleagues:
We are pleased to share with you the most relevant details regarding the new Draft Regulations for the Federal Law on the Protection of Industrial Property.
This document is a draft and is currently under review. It is pending approval and official publication in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) to become fully legally valid.
Its main objective is to regulate the provisions of the Federal Law on the Protection of Industrial Property and to consolidate the administrative modernization of the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI).
Below, we highlight the most relevant points covered in this document under review:
- Digitization and Online Procedures: The bill comprehensively regulates the use of electronic communication channels and platforms for IMPI services, recognizing the use of advanced electronic signatures as having the same evidential value as handwritten signatures. In addition, it formally introduces the online administrative infringement declaration procedure.
- Patent and Industrial Design Management: The rules for the submission of drawings, disclosure of inventions, divisional applications, and specific requirements for inventions based on genetic resources or traditional knowledge are clarified.
- Trademarks and Distinctive Signs: The requirements for representing non-traditional trademarks (such as sounds, smells, positional marks, or multimedia marks) are detailed through clear and precise descriptions, as well as the possibility of submitting physical or electronic evidence. Written consent for the coexistence of confusingly similar trademarks is also formally regulated.
- Technology Transfer Registry: This provision calls for the administration of a specific registry where license agreements, confidentiality agreements, assignments of rights, and collaboration agreements involving technology transfer may be registered.
- Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms: The IMPI is empowered to facilitate conciliation between the parties, governed by principles of confidentiality, good faith, and impartiality, allowing for agreements with the force of administrative res judicata.
Entry into Force and Next Steps.
If approved in its current form, the transitional provisions of the draft regulation establish that the Regulation will enter into force ninety business days following its publication in the Official Gazette of the Federation.
We will continue to closely monitor the review and approval process for this draft regulation to keep you promptly informed of its official publication in the DOF and the definitive impacts it will have on the management of your intellectual property portfolios.
Sincerely,
Vázquez Aldana, Hernández Gómez & Asociados