• Find a lawyer
  • Practices and Sectors
    Position
    Office

Legal briefing

The IMPI Has Been Designated as an International Searching and Preliminary Examining Authority Under the PCT

17/07/2026

The Assembly of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) unanimously approves the appointment of Mexico's IMPI as an International Searching and Preliminary Examining Authority, making it the twenty-sixth such authority worldwide and the fourth to operate in Spanish.

During the Assemblies of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held in Geneva, the Assembly of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) approved by consensus the appointment of the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) as an International Searching and Preliminary Examining Authority (ISA/IPEA). With this recognition, the IMPI becomes the twenty-sixth international authority of its kind and the fourth to operate in Spanish.

Applicants filing international patents through the PCT will now be able to choose the IMPI as the competent authority for the International Search and Preliminary Examination of patentability, procedures that until now had to be entrusted to foreign authorities. This designation offers significant practical and economic advantages, particularly for Mexican and Latin American applicants, who will be able to receive reports and preliminary opinions in Spanish, avoiding translation costs and delays, with fees expected to be lower than those of other Spanish-speaking authorities.

Consult the full content of the Legal Briefing here.

Related Practices and Sectors