Intellectual Property Rights in Mexico

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Intellectual Property Rights in Mexico

After signing the NAFTA on the 90s Mexico has been through a lot of changes.

First the opening to a freer market even though we did business across-borders before.

Second the implementation of new technologies that will let us keep up with the international competition.

Third the maintenance of all of our signed agreements, basically check that we have enforced the rules as well as improved our economy.

We are going to focus on the 3rd one, specifically on the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) matter discussion.

Mexico has signed with different organizations like World Trade Organization (WTO), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and standardized our legal issues about IPR in order to fulfill the international requirements. In theory Mexican laws are the same as the ones signed at the WTO. The main difference is the implementation of them.

Mexico's record regarding protection of IPR in practice has not been implemented, enforced and protected the way it should be. The most affected industries have always been the developers of technology as well as innovators. Some of them are: the pharmaceutical sector, film and music industry, software developers and fashion brands. They are not receiving money back thanks to trademark counterfeiting, copyright piracy, and patent infringements most of them produced in China but highly commercialized in Mexico as well in countries in developing ways.

Mexican companies and individuals have the same degree of intellectual property rights protection as given to foreign companies and individuals.

But as we have a major "Pirate" industry, Mexican culture on IPR, generally speaking, is not conscientious.

First Mexico is not a developer of technology and if someone has the opportunity to do it most of the times is done abroad, because of Mexico's lack of infrastructure to develop it or lack of support and capital. So if it's done abroad joint with foreigners it stays abroad.

Second IPR of Mexican products are respected abroad as they respect their own, they give them national treatment, but the situation changes here as we are not developers of technology we don't see a big difference between buying the original or the copy, only that the first one costs 5 times more than the other.

Mexican government supposedly is for the protection of IPR, but our "Pirate" industry is so big that sometimes government is afraid of social protests so they prefer to leave it the way it is. The way to prevent or punish the "pirates" at the informal commerce is just getting there and destroying the products, most of them DVDs, CDs, software and illegal pornography.

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