EXTENSION OF THE DURATION OF A PATENT IN EL SALVADOR.

TERM EXTENSION OF PATENT PROTECTION IN EL SALVADOR

Patents in El Salvador are granted for protection of 20 years term, counted from the filing date of the patent application. Nevertheless, in case of PCT patent applications that enter into national phase in
our country, the date of filing recognized by the Registry of Intellectual Property (herein after IP Registry) is the filing date of the international application.
Based on the amendments made in our legislation, as a result of the ratification of DR-CAFTA (Dominican Republic – Central America Free Trade Agreement with the USA) by El Salvador, it is now possible to request the Term extension of a patent protection, i.e., that the 20 years term end at a later date, but cannot be extended for more of 550 days . 2
It is possible to request the extension of the term protection in all patent applications filed after January 20, 2006, and only if the following cases apply:

(a) When it takes more than five years to grant the registration of a patent counted from the filing date of the patent application and if this is attributable to the IP Registry;
(b) When it takes more than three years to grant the registration of a patent counted from the date the substantive examination was requested and if this is for reasons attributable to the IP Registry; or

(c) When for reasons attributable to the competent authority for granting registrations for the marketing of pharmaceutical products (National Medicines Bureau – “DNM” is the abbreviation in Spanish), it takes more than five years to grant the registration, counted from the filing date. The provisions of this case shall only apply where the product patent is registered in El Salvador and its term of protection is ongoing.
This request must be submitted to the entity in charge who shall evaluate it in order to analyze the reasons and circumstances that led to a late registration. Once this request is evaluated, its authorization to extend or not the term of the patent protection will depend on the competent authority´s criteria.

Up to this date in our country, and after this legal provision became effective, there has been only one request to extend the term protection of a patent. However, this topic has risen the interest of many patentees.