Filing regulations modified

November 22, 2010

BY GEORGINA FLORES

In order to update the means of receiving documentation, the Mexican Patent Office (IMPI) has amended the Rules for filing applications by means of an Act published on March 18 2010 in the Official Gazette. The Act is effective from the following day.
Relevant issues in this Act include those referred to in Articles 40 and 41 of the Mexican Patent Law and Article 36 of the Regulations, wherein the IMPI will accept a certified copy of the patent application or granted patent issued by the empowered authority at the country of origin, which could be contained in any device to save information provided the information is legible and has not been edited. If the priority document is in a different language to Spanish, the applicant must file the corresponding translation according to Article 36 of the Regulations.
Another important amendment relates to the sequence listing for nucleotides and amino acids, wherein it is also possible to present the electronic file contained in a device to save information when it is legible and has not been edited. Furthermore, the applicant must file an original printing of the file which, of course, must be identical to that contained in the device.

The device should be identified accordingly, including with a printed label with the name of the applicant, the title of the invention and the date when the sequence listing was saved. And if the device is filed after the filing date of the patent application, the label must contain additionally the application number and the filing date.
In fact, the IMPI suggests the sequence listings could be generated using a computer program called Patentln.
This is an important step in the modernisation of the Mexican Patent Office which will allow work in the same line as other international equivalent offices and will facilitate the filing, handling and examination of complex contents as sequence listings.
Source: Managing Intellectual Property Magazine, Jul/Aug 2010.