News

Mexico: New electronic services for patent prosecution at the MPO

The Mexican Patent Office (MPO) has announced the possibility of converting the prosecution of patent applications from paper to electronic means, thereby enabling us to remotely resume the prosecution of said applications.

In Mexico, when an application has been submitted either paper based or online, the remaining prosecution must continue the same way. Provided that online filing for patent applications has been entirely enabled only a few years ago, most of the applications that are currently in the substantive examination stage were subject to continue exclusively via paper means.

It was until recently, on June 8th, that the MPO has made available an electronic service for converting paper to online applications, with the provision that once converted, its prosecution must remain online.

The file conversion must be requested through MPO’s electronic platform, which shall be accepted within the following 3-6 working days. Afterwards, the electronic platform will be enabled for filing voluntary amendments, responses to office actions issued in connection with substantive examination, making maintenance payments and/or IP rights ownership updates.

ClarkeModet highly recommends the applications’ online conversion, as the MPO is establishing a priority system, by which all of the procedures filed online during the activities’ suspension are “queued” and will be officially admitted in an orderly fashion once MPO’s regular activities are resumed.

Should you require further information regarding this new provision, please contact us at info@clarkemodet.com.mx

We would also like to remind you that ClarkeModet continues to carry out a comprehensive monitoring of the situation in the Intellectual Property Offices worldwide. Please visit our space to check the current status of the Offices in all Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries: