MEXICO
AMENDMENT TO THE INDUSTRIAL DESIGN PROCEDURE
The term of validity for industrial designs is one of the changes introduced by the amendment of the Mexican Industrial Property Law
Article 36 provides that the validity term for industrial designs will now be of 25 years –renewable for successive periods of 5 years from the application date- instead of 15 years.
Article 36 BIS establishes that the application for the renewal of industrial designs shall be 6 months prior to the end of the validity term of the industrial design.
The amendment will be effective on April 25th of 2018. Regarding the currently ongoing applications, the applicants may ask for the new amendment to apply to their process. They have until June 5th of 2018 to file the change of regulation.
Industrial designs registrations prior to April 25th of 2018 will continue to have the given validity date and will have to continue to pay for one or five yearly payment. However, they may be renewed for two additional successive periods of 5 years after their validity term of 15 years is over, for a term not exceeding a total of 25 years from the application date.