It was announced this week that a cooperation plan between the World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO) and the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property
(IMPI) was signed on Tuesday, with a view to promoting the exchange and use
of patent information for business development, especially among small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs).
This took place on the sidelines of the annual meetings of WIPO Assemblies
from September 24 to October 3, 2007.
The agreement means that Mexican national patent information dating from 1997
will now be fully searchable via WIPO’s PatentScope portal.
PatentScope is a gateway to information on all of WIPO’s patent related
services and activities. Most notably, PatentScope offers easy access to the
more than one million international patent applications, including bibliographic
data and documents, published under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). The
PCT is a cornerstone of the international patent system, and greatly facilitates
the process of obtaining patent protection in up to 137 countries.
According to WIPO:
"The availability of Mexican patent data via PatentScope offers users
of the patent system access to broader data coverage in a fully searchable format.
Companies in Mexico will now be able to benefit from easy access to detailed
and highly relevant technical information which will help them to find technologies
which they may use for free, and to identify opportunities for new product development."
Under the cooperation plan, WIPO will provide IMPI with access to complete weekly
collections of published PCT international applications and to the latest bibliographic
data and documents contained in the files of the PCT international applications
via an FTP server. WIPO and IMPI will also work closely to develop patent information
tools to demonstrate the value of patent information and to increase awareness
in the use of patent information.
WIPO and IMPI will further develop a Spanish language search interface and
online documentation for the benefit of patent information users in Spanish-speaking
countries.