The Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) has introduced the Accelerated Patent Grant (APG) program, a collaborative initiative with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). This program aims to expedite the patent granting process for applications filed in both jurisdictions under certain conditions.
1. To be eligible for the APG program, the Mexican patent application must claim priority from a U.S. application, or both the U.S. and Mexican applications must share common priority.
2. The Mexican application must have completed all necessary formalities, been published in the Mexican Gazette, and passed the two-month period for third-party observations.
3. The related U.S. patent must have been granted and published.
4. The claims in the Mexican application must "sufficiently correspond" to those granted by the USPTO. This means the claims must either have the same scope or be narrower than the U.S. claims.
To request participation in the APG program, applicants must submit a form with details of the MX application like title, filing date, application number, and applicant's name. Likewise, it has to specify the US patent application and patent numbers, include a Spanish translation of granted US claims, and a correspondence table for claim comparison between the MX claims and the US claims.
This program offers a new pathway to accelerate the grant of Mexican patent applications, including those that have already entered the substantive examination phase. This contrasts with the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH), which only applies to applications that have not yet commenced the examination process.
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