The Argentine Industrial Property Office (INPI) recently enacted two new resolutions:
* Resolution 178/08, under which the INPI required all patent applicants who filed an application before 1 January 2008 to submit, within a 90-day period, a declaration stating whether the foreign priority which was claimed at the time of filing was granted in the country of origin. The deadline for this period is next week, on 30 October 2008, and is not extendable. In order to comply with this resolution, applicants should submit a list of Argentine patent applications and simply indicate whether foreign priority has been granted. If this is not done by the deadline, the application will be declared abandoned. The idea is that. by making applicants declare their continued interest in prosecuting their pending applications, the current prosecution backlog may be reduced by declaring abandoned those applications for which no declaration is made.[source: Daniel R Zuccherino (Obligado & Cia), writing in International Law Office].
* Resolution 213/08 establishes a procedure whereby the INPI will remove an international priority document established under the Paris Convention from the application file and return it to the owner, reserving the right to request it subsequently if necessary. Likewise, from the moment the resolution comes into force, translations of international priority documents established under the Paris Convention must be filed in digital media (CD-ROM).
