With the purpose of harmonizing the industrial property regulations and regulatory policies, while taking actions leading to reduce the current backlog and pendency times, the Mexican Patent Office (IMPI) has introduced an amendment in Article 11 of the Agreement stablishing the deadlines of several proceedings in patent prosecution. Particularly, modified Article 11 – in force from 12 March 2026- establishes that the IMPI could issue up to two office actions1, reducing the number of office actions to be issued per case by 50%. This change will only apply to application filed from 12 March going forward, thus, applications filed prior to that date will have up to four office actions before a final decision is made.
Other relevant changes now include the possibility of requesting an interview with the Examiner, and the option that the Office might contact the Applicant after the issuance of the first examination seeking to analyze the prior art-related objections in a virtual meeting. Both options have been available for several years but have not been introduced in Mexican proceedings, thus, in practice, they heavily depended on Examiner’s availability.
