Amendments to the Rules for Filing applications into the MXPTO

September 11, 2019

This week some amendments to the Rules for filing applications into the MXPTO were published in the Official Gazette of the Federation, which came into force on September 4, 2019.

The main amendment is related to the type of certified copies accepted by the MXPTO in order to recognize the priority rights for patents, industrial designs and utility models.

Currently, a certified copy of the priority documents has to be filed within three months from the filing date. Thus, it is common to file certified hard copies along with the corresponding translation into Spanish language. Nevertheless, some foreign offices also issue electronic certified copies such as the EUIPO and even some offices no longer issue hard copies, such as the Chilean Patent Office.

Thus, according to the recent amendments, the MXPTO will accept said electronic certified copies as long as they include an electronic validation mechanism which must be available for the MXPTO to validate the priority at least until the end of the formal examination.