Understanding Mexico's Intellectual Property Laws

Mexico is a civil law country, meaning that the Mexican system does not rely on stare decisis or considers case law as binding precedent. As a result, the Mexican intellectual property statues are significantly more detailed than their US compliments. Mexican law recognizes only intellectual property that has industrial uses. For example, Mexico recognizes and protects patents, utility models, industrial design, trademark, trade secret, slogan, trade name, and origin identification.

Any invention that is new and is applicable to an industrial application may be protected with a patent (so long as the Inventive Step Requirement is met). The patent must enable something to be transformed for the benefit of man towards an immediate satisfaction of a specific need. In other words, ideas cannot be patented, instead processes that result in a final use can be patented and protected.