Understanding The Novelty Requirement For Industrial Designs Under Mexican Law

The concept of novelty is a cornerstone in the protection of industrial designs, ensuring that only truly new and original creations receive legal protection. In Mexico, the Federal Law for the Protection of Industrial Property (FLPIP) outlines specific criteria for what constitutes a novel design.

Article 67 of the FLPIP stipulates that for a design to be considered novel, it must meet two key criteria:

A) Independent Creation: This means that the design must be the result of the creator's own intellectual effort and not a copy or imitation of an existing design. Industrial designs whose characteristics differ only in "irrelevant details" shall be considered identical.

Although the emphasis of this definition is on the originality of the creation process, the key issue here is the term "irrelevant details". When addressing this criterion, rather than demonstrating that the design was developed independently, one must be focused on explaining why the