Mexican law provides that an invention (patent, business model or industrial design) must meetthe following requirements before being eligible for registration:1. That the invention at issue is the result of an invention process. This means thatinventions that can be registered must be the product of significant research anddevelopment efforts and not a simple idea that occurred to the inventor in a singlemoment.2. That the invention at issue has an industrial (business) application. This requirementintends to reduce the administrative workload for the registration of inventions; that isto say, to avoid the study of inventions that, notwithstanding their merit as aninvention, lack any application that is useful for the titleholder or society in general.3. That the invention at issue be novel. Novelty is an indispensable requirement for theregistration of an invention. Mexico’s Intellectual Property Law defines “new” as allthat is unknown to the “technical state,” and “technical state” is further defined as thetechnical knowledge that has been published orally or in writing, used or sharedthrough any media or information channel in Mexico or abroad. It is important to notethat this requirement cannot be circumvented; therefore, the title holder of aninvention must be very careful in not disclosing his or her invention before applyingfor the invention’s registration; otherwise, such invention may not be considered anovelty. Notwithstanding the above, article 18 of the law cited above provides theforms of prior disclosure that recognize novelty in registering patents.4. That the invention can be registered, which means that the invention can be registeredpursuant to articles 16 and 19 of the Intellectual Property Law. For example, aninvention that consists of a process that is essentially biological, an animal species,parts of the human body, or theoretical or scientific principles, mathematical methodsor surgical treatment methods for therapy or diagnosis and any other invention forwhich a patent cannot be obtained does not meet this invention registrationrequirement.
