Patent registration in El Salvador. El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. El Salvador was the first country to ratify the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) — negotiated by the five countries of Central America and the Dominican Republic — with the United States. El Salvador’s economy has historically been dominated by agriculture. However, recently, El Salvador has embarked on diversifying its economy by opening up trade and financial links and expanding the manufacturing sector. Accordingly, many businesses want to enter this market and one of the most important preparations a business needs to take before expanding to this country is to learn the procedure of patent registration in El Salvador.
Patent in El Salvador
To be patentable in El Salvador, an invention must satisfy the novelty, non-obviousness, and industrial applicability requirements.
Specifically, the novelty requirement of the patent will be searched in the database by the IP Office in accordance with article 152 of the Intellectual Property Law.
On the other hand, the inventions that can’t be patentable in El Salvador are:
- Discoveries, scientific theories, mathematical methods;
- Plans, principles, and methods applied to economics, advertising, and business-related to purely mental or intellectual activities and those related to games;
- Methods of diagnostic, surgical, or therapeutic treatment applied to humans or animals, except for the products destined to execute such methods;
- Inventions which publication and commercial or industrial use that goes against the public or moral order.
Necessary documents for patent registration in El Salvador
The necessary documents for patent registration in El Salvador include:
- The request to grant a patent (patent application);
- Detailed information on the applicant(s) including the applicant’s and inventor’s names, addresses, citizenships, etc.;
- A description of the invention;
- A signed and stamped power of attorney by the applicant(s);
- A copy of the amendments (if any);
- Priority documents (if any).
- Other required documents.
The procedure of patent registration in El Salvador
To obtain a patent in El Salvador, the applicant needs to file their patent application to the IP Office of El Salvador.
The application must contain the afore-mentioned documents such as the patent description, abstract, claims, and drawings if applicable, an assignment document in case the application is filed in the name of a corporation.
The patent application will be examined by the examiners at the IP Office. If there are no formality issues, the application is admitted and it will be published in the Official Gazette after 18 months from the filing date.
The Intellectual Property Law of El Salvador provides an opposition procedure enabling the filing of observations to the patentability requirements of a new invention, within two months after publication of the patent extract notice in the Official Gazette.
The applicant is granted the right to reply to any observations made by third parties. The IP Office will carefully consider the claims by both parties and give the final decision.
After the publication and the opposition period, if there are no oppositions or the opposition action has been resolved in favor of the applicant, a substantive examination is made by an expert in the field and if the patent complies with all requirements, the certificate of a patent is granted to the applicant.
The validity period and rights of the patentee in El Salvador
If the patent is granted, the patentee will have the right to prohibit any actions by third parties that infringe upon their rights such as manufacturing, sales, imports, storage, transit through the country, etc.
The limits to the right of ownership are those mentioned in article 5 of the Paris Convention: private use, scientific investigation, and commercialization of the patent once its term of protection has lapsed.
The term of the patents in this country is for 20 years without any extension, later this will pass into the public domain.
You can see a list of El Salvador IP firms here.