Regarding small entities in Mexican patent applications

According to the patent law promulgated by the Mexican Industrial Property Institute (IMPI) and its related regulations, small entity applicants can only pay 50% of the official patent fee when submitting a patent application to the Mexican Patent Office. This rule applies to all foreign applicants.

In Mexican patent law, small entities explicitly mentioned by law include: natural persons, universities, public scientific research institutions, etc. However, according to company size, only micro-enterprises and small enterprises are considered small entities under patent law. The following are the specific classification regulations for the size of small entities specified in the Mexican Patent Law:

*Maximum comprehensive upper limit = number of employees x 0.1 + annual sales x 0.9

Since the fee mitigation under the Mexican Patent Law only applies to micro and small enterprises, in order to ensure that foreign companies qualify as small entities, taking into account that annual sales are affected by the exchange rate, for safety reasons, we recommend that there be no more than 30 employees and a maximum annual sales of Applicants with US$5 million can apply as small entities.
Companies with a larger number of employees or sales, and to avoid doubts arising from classifying the company's activities according to industry, are advised not to apply for small entity status. And it’s important to note that a weaker Mexican currency will lower the cap on the regulations.

Note: After submitting a new application to IMPI, the official fee already paid will not be refunded. Before submitting a new application, it is necessary to determine the nature of the applicant.