Argentina
Answer ... The National Industrial Property Institute (INPI).
Argentina
Answer ... The official fees for filing a patent application are as follows:
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Filing charge:
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- Up to 10 claims: $96.
- For each additional claim:$6.40.
- Filing power of attorney and ratifying the application: $8.
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Requesting examination:
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- Up to 10 claims: $160.
- For each additional claim: $6.40.
- Replying to an official action (minimum): $8.
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Annuities:
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- First to third (per year): $48.
- Fourth to sixth (per year): $80.
- Seventh to twentieth (per year): $192.
All costs are approximate, based on an exchange rate of $1 = ARS 62.50.
Argentina
Answer ... The basic grounds are lack of novelty, lack of inventive step or lack of industrial application. A patent application can also be rejected if it is contrary to any prescription of the law.
The rejection may be based on the patentability exclusions. In this regard, the following are not considered inventions under the Patent Law:
- discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods;
- literary, artistic and aesthetic works, as well as scientific works;
- plans, rules and methods for the exercise of intellectual activities, games or economic-commercial activities, as well as software programs;
- forms of presentation of information;
- surgical, therapeutic or diagnostic treatments applicable to the human body or animals;
- juxtapositions of known inventions, mixtures of known products, or variations in shape, size or materials, except where they are combined or merged in such a way that they cannot function separately, or where their main qualities and functions are modified to obtain a non-obvious industrial result for a technician skilled in the art; and
- any kind of living matter and substances that pre-exist in nature.
In addition, the following are not patentable inventions:
- any inventions whose exploitation in Argentina must be prohibited to protect public order or the morality, health or life of human beings or animals, and to preserve vegetation or avoid serious damage to the environment; or
- any biologic or genetic material, whether existing in nature or replicated, and any biological processes implicit in animal, plant or human reproduction, including genetic processes relating to any material capable of conducting its own duplication under normal and free conditions, as occurs in nature.
Furthermore, an application may be rejected for non-compliance with certain procedural matters.
Please also see question 3.5.
Argentina
Answer ... There are three options to accelerate the examination of patent applications:
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INPI Resolution P-56/2016 may be invoked to adapt, either voluntarily or as per the examiner’s suggestion, the claims to those of an equivalent patent that has been granted in a foreign country with a substantive examination procedure and same patentability standards as Argentina, provided that the following criteria are met;
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- The claimed object is eligible for protection under the Patent Law;
- No local antecedents have been found;
- The application satisfies all formal requirements; and
- The scope of the adapted claims does not surpass the scope of the claims in the foreign patent.
- In this scenario, the international search of antecedents will be avoided.
- The application may be filed via the Patent Prosecution Highway in the case of countries that are party to such agreements. Argentina has already signed with Japan, China, the United States, Denmark, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican Republic.
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A new programme launched in 2019, called the Priority Patent Examination, benefits those that file their first patent application in Argentina, with substantive examination taking place within 60 days of the date of filing of the corresponding form, where the following criteria are met:
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- The first deposit is filed in Argentina;
- The application has already been published in the official bulletin of INPI;
- the timeframe for third-party observation has expired;
- The applicant has paid the fee for substantive examination, which must not have started yet; and
- No other fast track programme has been previously requested for the same application.
Argentina
Answer ... Yes. Certain types of claims are inadmissible due to an incorrect interpretation of the law on use claims, which are rejected by INPI even though nothing in the Patent Law or in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights states that they are excluded from protection.
Some other claims are not admissible based on a joint resolution signed by INPI, the former Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Health. This resolution arbitrarily limits the scope of chemical-pharmaceutical inventions by not allowing polymorphs, pseudo-polymorphs, enantiomers, Markush formulas, selection patents, salts, esters and other derivatives of known substances, active metabolites, prodrugs, formulations and compositions, combination of previously known active principles, doses, second medical uses and analogue processes.
The INPI guidelines on patentability added some definitions that partly limit the protection of biotechnological inventions such as modified nucleotide or amino acid sequences, genetically modified organisms and genetic transformation events.
Argentina
Answer ... There are no such mechanisms in Argentina.
Argentina
Answer ... Any invention of a product or of a process is patentable, provided that it is new, involves an inventive step and has industrial application. Any human creation that enables the transformation of matter or energy for human use that fulfils such characteristics shall be considered an invention.
Argentina
Answer ... Yes.
One option is to file a request for reconsideration, which is regulated under the Administrative Proceedings National Law. This appeal must be filed within 10 business days of notification of rejection and is filed with the same authority that issued the decision, which will also decide on the outcome.
If it is rejected, then the appeal automatically proceeds to second instance as a hierarchical appeal which is decided by the president of INPI; additional grounds may be filed during this proceeding. However, there is no need to file a request for reconsideration first; a hierarchical appeal may be filed directly upon rejection of the patent application, within 15 business days of notification of the decision.
Once the rejection is ratified by the hierarchical appeal, a legal action may be filed at the civil and commercial federal courts.
The other option is to file an administrative appeal, which is regulated under the Patent National Law. This appeal must be filed within 30 business days of notification of the rejection before the president of INPI, who will also decide on the outcome. There is no second instance for this appeal; hence, following ratification of the denial, the applicant may file a legal action with the courts.