With the advent of the amendments to the 1991 Mexican Patent Law, which entered into effect on October, 1994, the patentability of inventions has been extended to practically all types of creations, regardless of the technical field to which they pertain and including protection for second medical uses of chemical compounds.

The only exceptions for patentability in Mexico are represented by the following non patentable inventions:

a) Essentially biological processes for the production, reproduction and propagation of plants and animals.

COMMENTS: This provision clearly refers to non patentability of plant and animal breeding, but does not refer to processes involving molecular biology, genetic engineering and the like.

b) Naturally occurring biological and genetic material.

COMMENTS: This provision clearly refers to non transformed biological and genetic material, that is, material in which man has had no intervention for its transformation, but does not refer to genetically engineered material or even "fished genes" and the like.

c) Animal races.

COMMENTS: The criterion of the authorities is that this prohibition does not apply to transgenic animals, which may therefore be regarded as patentable.

d) The human body and the living parts constituting the same.

e) Plant varieties.

COMMENTS: This provision obeys to the fact that a new special law for the protection of plant obtentions or varieties has just recently been enacted.
Also, the generic items that do not constitute inventions under the law have been left practically without any change, since this was expressly permitted by the NAFTA, namely:

a) Scientific or theoretical principles.

b) Mere discoveries of something already existent in nature, even if it was unknown to man before.

c) Schemes, plans, rules and methods to carry out mental acts, games or business and mathematical methods.

d) Computer programs.

e) Forms of presentation of information.

f) Aesthetic creations and artistic and literary works.

g) Surgical, therapeutic and diagnosis methods applicable to the human body and those relating to animals.

h) Associations of known inventions or mixtures of known products, their variation of use, shape, dimensions or materials, unless said association is such that the inventions cannot work separately for the alleged purpose or unless the qualities of functions characteristic of said known inventions be modified to obtain an industrial result or a use not obvious for a technician in the art.

COMMENTS: This provision is the one by which second uses of compounds, including second medical uses, are now permissible as patentable subject matter in Mexico.
The content of this article is intended only to provide general guidelines related to this particular matter. For your specific circumstances, full specialist advice is recommended.