Industrial Models and Designs – Approval of Locarno Agreement

By Law No 26,402, published in the Official Gazette on September 12, 2008, the Argentine Congress approved the Locarno Agreement which establishes an international classification for Industrial Models and Designs, and signed in the mentioned Swiss town on October 8, 1968, and further amended on September 28, 1979.

The Agreement determines a standardization for classifying the universe of elements that might be protected by means of industrial models or designs, and defines thirty one classes, numbered from 01 to 31 and also a class 99 (Miscellaneous), divided in turn in several subclasses, and these into lists of standard products.

The classification used by the Argentine Patent Office (INPI) me be consulted via it webpage at:

 

On the other hand, the 8th revision of the international classification according to Locarno may be consulted in detail at:

 

After a quick revision it may be seen that the class and subclass lists, used by the Argentine Patent Office by the time the law came in force, was already very close to those used in Locarno and, therefore, it only helps to debug some clerical errors in the subclass lists and to incorporate the serial product numbering detailed therein.

Although this new law does not seem to add great benefit to the end user, this news should be considered positive since it helps to further standardize the Argentine Patent Office’s work, and to let it be a step closer to the way major international patent offices handle these matters.