Intellectual Property
Protecting the brand and technology assets your operation depends on.
In Mexico, trademark rights belong to whoever files first at the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) — not to whoever used the brand first abroad. Companies that arrive with an established name and postpone registration routinely discover that a distributor, a former partner or an opportunistic third party filed it before them, and buying it back costs far more than filing ever would have. Our first instruction to any client entering the market is the same: file before you announce.
Protection does not end with the certificate. Copyright and software registrations run through INDAUTOR, trade secrets survive only if confidentiality is documented and enforced, and everything created by employees or contractors belongs to the company only if the contracts say so under Mexican law — foreign work-for-hire clauses do not translate automatically. We draft the assignment and confidentiality architecture so that what your people create is actually yours.
When infringement appears, we act on two fronts: administrative enforcement before IMPI — declarations of infringement, seizures, fines — and border measures, recording trademarks with Mexican customs so counterfeit shipments can be stopped at entry. The strategy is chosen case by case, but the principle is constant: a registered, monitored portfolio is cheaper than any litigation it prevents.
What we cover
- 01Trademark registration before IMPI
- 02Phonetic searches and coexistence analysis
- 03License and franchise agreements
- 04IP assignment and transfer
- 05Regulatory response management
- 06Domain and digital asset protection