PATENTS

GRANTING CLASSES AND TERMS:

• Patents (20 years as of the filing date).
• Additional patents and improvements patents (granted for the effective term left over the main patent).

PATENTABLE INVENTIONS:

• Inventions on new products or processes, which imply inventive quality that may be applied in the industry and which has been revealed before the original application filing date.

FOLLOWING ITEMS ARE NOT CONSIDERED INVENTIONS:

• Scientific discoveries or theories, mathematical methods.
• Literary works, art works and scientific works.
• The problems and methods to implement economic and commercial activities or information system programs.
• Information modes presentation.
• Diagnosis and treatment, surgical and therapeutic methods in human beings or animals.
• The inventions combination or the mixture of already known products, except in the case that they lead to a new result not known by experts in mentioned subject.
• No type of stuff or substance such as it may be in nature.

FOLLOWING ITEMS ARE NOT PATENTABLE:

• The inventions which exploitation may result in damage or harmful to protect the public order, morale, health, individuals’ or animals’ life or which threaten plants or the environment in Argentina.
• No biological stuff existing in the nature or which reproduction may imply a natural process in animals, plants and human beings.

NOVELTY:

Novelty should be absolute, the matter purpose of inventive quality not having been revealed publicly prior to the respective application presentation, either in oral or written form in the country or abroad.

The invention which has been revealed within a year’s term before filing the respective application will not be affected by lack of novelty provided that the inventor has declared expressly such fact in the application deposited in Argentina.

APPLICANT:

The inventor, his successors and assigns, are an individual or legal entity.

The inventor or the inventors have the right to be mentioned in the patent granting certificate.

NECESSARY DOCUMENTATION:

For the provisional application:

• Applicant’s data.
• Description of the invention and one or more claims, in Spanish. Priority claim. The application has to be complemented within 90 days as of the filing date.

For the formal application:

• Notarial power of attorney issued by the applicant duly authorized by the Argentine Consulate or bearing the Apostille, according to the La Haya Convention.
• In the event that a general power of attorney for patents, utility models, industrial models and trademarks as well as their respective renewals, is granted, one only document will suffice for all those new cases or for the same owner’s subsequent cases.
• The text, the specification and the claims in Spanish (or to be translated into Spanish).
• Three copies of the designs in A-4 paper.
• In the event of claiming priority according to the Paris Convention, a certified copy of the basic application in Spanish or translated into Spanish.

Assignment Documents. Download
Power of Attorney Documents. Download

EXAMINATION:

Preliminary Examination:

• Once submitted the respective application, the Patents Office will carry out a preliminary examination over the form, and any objection shall be corrected before 180 days.

Publication.

• The publication will be made within the year of the application presentation (approximately). Such publication may be advanced at the request of the applicant, by paying a fee in advance.

Opposition to third parties.

• Third parties’ oppositions jointly with the evidence supporting them may be filed up to 60 days after the patent application publication date.

Substantive Examination.

• Once foregoing stages have been fulfilled, the applicant shall request the substantive examination and pay the corresponding fee to such purpose. The lack of payment of the respective fee within three years of having filed the application will cause the application to be abandoned.  Any objection shall be overcome within the term of 60 days as of having been notified.

Answers to observations or reconsideration requests.

• They should be filed within 30 days as of having been notified.

ANNUITIES:

An annual fee has to be paid in order to keep the patent in force; the first fee having to be paid before the last business day of the month in which 90 running days as of the date of the patent granting notice have passed.

The subsequent fees will have to be paid the last business day of the month in which 30 running days of the patent granted date anniversary have passed.

With a charge of 30% the annuities could be paid within 180 running days subsequent to the respective expiration. The lack of payment of one annuity will cause the patent expiration.

EXPLOITATION:

The invention shall be exploited within three years as of the patent granting, or within four years counted as of the application date, unless in the case of force majeure; once started the exploitation, it could not be interrupted for periods longer than a year. In the case of lack of exploitation, or its suspension, any individual will be entitled to ask for authorization to exploit the invention, even without the owner’s authorization, by means of an obligatory licence which basis could be set forth by the Patents Office.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS:

Any patent application may be transformed in a utility model application within 90 days as of the filing date or within 90 days as of the Patents Office requirement.