New proposal of bill against Pharmaceutical Patents

July 17, 2013

On July 3, 2013, a left-wing political party presented to the Mexican Congress a proposal to amend the Industrial Property Law (IP Law) by eliminating and adding some of the current provisions.   This Bill intends mainly to establish the following:

i) Prohibit the patentability of certain subject matter related with drugs and medicines and also ban the juxtaposition of known inventions and products.

ii) Establish a pre-grant patent opposition system.

iii) Expedite the process of compulsory licenses for causes of national emergency and open the possibility by anyone to request the initiation of this process.

Especially, the proposal identified in numbering i) pretends to include in the IP Law the following exclusions from patentability:

“In the pharmaceutical field, individual enantiomers, new salts, esters, ethers or polymorphs of existing chemical entities, new routes of administration or new dosage forms that allow new routes of administration, controlled dosage forms when there is a non-controlled release form, changes in the formulation, and any compound (claims) that include a large number of chemical substituents, functionally equivalent to one or more parts of the compound or compounds whose properties have not been proven.”

We consider that this proposal of amendment of the Mexican IP Law contravenes International Treaties adopted by Mexico related to Intellectual Property, as it means an arbitrary and discriminating veto for innovation in the pharmaceutical area, which is privative and would be considered unconstitutional.

In addition, the proposals for the establishment of a patent opposition system and the abstruse attempt to “expedite” the granting of compulsory licenses, both lack of legal and technical consistency and skillfulness.  In our consideration, the proposal does not properly understand  the problematic that it is aimed to address.

Partners and Associates of our law firm through diverse associations of which we are members will follow up and oppose to this Bill and any other one against a proper IP System and International Treaties adopted by Mexico.