Legislative Implementation of Flexibilities - El Salvador

Title:	Articles 151-153 of the Intellectual Property Legislative Decree No. 604 of 15/07/1993 No. 604 as last amended by Legislative Decree No. 912 of 14/12/2005
Field of IP:	Patents
Type of flexibility:	Substantive examination
Summary table:

Provisions of Law

Article 151

In the case of patent applications, the Registry shall order a substantive examination of the invention or utility model, through a written request to the applicant. The application may be submitted at any time after the filing date has been assigned, but may not be submitted six months after the date that the publication of the patent application was announced in the Official Journal. The examination request shall be accompanied by the receipt for payment of the relevant examination duties.

If the request for examination is not filed within the period specified in the foregoing paragraph, the application shall be considered abandoned and instructions shall be given for it to be shelved, whereupon it shall immediately become public property.

Article 152

The purpose of the substantive examination shall be to verify compliance with the conditions of patentability provided for in this Law, and also with the requirements relating to the description, claims, drawings and abstract and those relating to unity of invention.

To carry out the substantive examination, the Registry may request the technical support of research institutes, university teaching centres, international agencies and the opinion of external experts, in accordance with the provisions of the Regulations of this Law.

The Registry may accept or request reports on the prior art and patentability reports drafted by national or regional industrial property offices abroad, as well as using cooperation mechanisms that exist as part of bilateral or multilateral agreements to carry them out, in accordance with the provisions of the Regulations of this Law.

The Registry may recognize the results of such examinations as sufficient to certify that the conditions for the invention's patentability have been fulfilled.

Article 153

For the purposes of the substantive examination, the Registry may require the applicant to provide, duly translated into Spanish, one or more of the following documents relating to foreign applications mentioned in the application:

(a) Copy of the foreign application and its accompanying documents;

(b) Copy of any communication or report referring to the results of searches for anticipation or examinations carried out in relation to the foreign request;

(c) Copy of the patent or other title of protection granted on the basis of the foreign application.

When the application filed in El Salvador includes inventions claimed in two or more foreign applications, in such a way that none of these totally includes what is claimed in the application filed, the Registry may ask the applicant to submit the documents mentioned in the above letters that relate to other foreign applications that correspond partially or totally to the application filed in El Salvador.