Protecting And Enforcing Design Rights

Legal framework

The Mexican Industrial Property Law 1991 (modified in 1994, 1997 and 2018) regulates industrial designs in Mexico. The protection granted to an industrial design application is a registration valid for five years from the filing date of the application, which can be renewed four times up to a maximum 25 years' protection. The Industrial Property Law regulations provide prosecution rules for industrial designs in Mexico. The Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) is the government office in charge of evaluating and granting industrial design registrations and a decentralised body of the Ministry of Economy.

Mexico is part of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Locarno Agreement that establishes an International Classification for Industrial Designs. On 6 September 2019 the Mexican Senate approved the accession of Mexico to the Geneva Act 1999 of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs. In order to put an international treaty in force in Mexico, a signature from the executive branch of the government will be necessary. The signature is imminent, since Mexico's accession to the Hague Agreement was a requirement of the recently ratified trilateral agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Unregistered and registered designs

Mexican legislation contemplates protection only for registered industrial designs; the unregistered design protection available in other jurisdictions is not available in Mexico.

The conferred right for a Mexican industrial design is the exclusive right of exploitation of the registered design, including the right to prevent others from manufacturing, using, selling, offering for sale or importing the registered product without consent or the appropriate licence.

The Industrial Property Law differentiates between the two-dimensional (2D) and threedimensional (3D) industrial designs having two categories of design:

industrial drawings are defined as 2D industrial designs, which are any combination of shapes, lines or colours incorporated in an industrial product for ornamentation purposes and which give it a specific appearance of its own; and industrial models are defined as 3D industrial designs constituted by any 3D shape that serves as a model or pattern for the manufacture of an industrial product, giving it a special appearance that does not involve any technical effects. Procedures

Formal requirements

The first requirement is to file an industrial design application before IMPI. The application writ must state:

the name, address and nationality of the applicants; the name and address of the designers; and the title of the design (eg, an industrial drawing of a pattern for a purse, or industrial model of a mobile phone). If a priority application is to be claimed, it is necessary to state at filing:

the date of the Mexican industrial design application; the country of the prior application; and the date of...