The New Law Governing Pharmaceutical patents in Mexico

Three sensitive issues of contemporary patent law are addressed for the first time in Mexican law applicable to patent rights. Some of them appear in the patent statute, but others show up in other bodies of law where the average practitioner normally would not look for answers to questions that have to do with patent law. I am talking about legislative changes that have an impact on patent law but that have been introduced through legislation and regulations dealing with health issues on the one hand, and environmental issues on the other; two sources of law that the patentee will have to take into consideration when patent rights are obtained, exercised and enforced in Mexico as far as pharmaceutical patents are concerned. The changes have to do with i. Proprietary indigenous rights on subject matter contemplated in a patent, ii. Health registrations for patented subject matter applied for by a party other than the patentee, and iii. Non-voluntary licenses. In the course of the year 2003, various legal instruments have been approved or amended through legislative action, as well as by presidential action in the form of regulations. We are talking about four actions of this nature, all of which have in common the impact that each of them has in the way patent rights are enjoyed and exercised in Mexico with particular emphasis on pharmaceutical patents. These legal instruments are represented by the Mexican Industrial Property Law, the Mexican Regulations on Health Substances, the Regulations of the Industrial Property Law and the New Law on Sustainable Forestal Development.