WIPO And Mexico Sign Cooperation Plan

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

04 October 2007

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.

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