Reviewed 4 November 2026.
A Mexico trademark search is run in the records of the Instituto Mexicano de la Propiedad Industrial (IMPI, the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property). Marcanet, IMPI's trademark database, holds registered and pending marks, avisos comerciales (registered commercial slogans) and published nombres comerciales (trade names). The Gaceta de la Propiedad Industrial (the Industrial Property Gazette) carries each new application and IMPI's actions on it, and ViDoc, IMPI's document viewer, holds the files. A search that can support a decision covers all three, in every class where the goods could sit, and is repeated close to the date of the decision.
The search matters more in Mexico than in the United States because the exclusive right to a mark comes from registration with IMPI, not from use (Article 170 of the Ley Federal de Protección a la Propiedad Industrial, LFPPI, the Federal Law for the Protection of Industrial Property). A company checking a name before entering the market, appointing a distributor, licensing a brand or buying a business needs to know who filed first. This guide is part of our work on due diligence in Mexico, and our guide to IP due diligence in Mexico covers the ownership, use and transfer rules a deal turns on.
A clean result has limits. It does not show who uses a name without registering it, a trade name that was never published, a foreign filing that can still claim priority, or who actually sells goods under a mark. It is not an opinion that a mark can be registered or that its use infringes no one's rights. Those questions belong to IMPI's examiners and to trademark counsel.
What IMPI's search tools cover in 2026
IMPI's register is public, except for confidential applications, and Article 22 of the LFPPI requires IMPI to make it available through electronic databases free of charge. IMPI's technical report to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for 2024 states that all information on marks, avisos and trade names, registered or pending, is digitized and available through Marcanet. The same report records that MARCia, the search tool IMPI ran from 2020, offered phonetic search in Spanish and English and search by image until August 2024. It names no public tool that replaced either function.
Do not rely on any database to find sound-alikes. Search each word element of the mark on its own and in combination, its translation into Spanish or English, singular and plural forms, likely misspellings and spellings that sound the same, and the name with and without spaces or hyphens. IMPI reports that it contributes its data to WIPO's Global Brand Database and to TMview, which the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) runs. WIPO describes its database as searchable by keyword, name, number, goods and services and image similarity, which makes it a cross-check for a logo with no words.
The Gazette is IMPI's official organ of publication and notification (Article 18), and IMPI notifies through it every resolution, requirement and other act in the processing of registrations and publications (Article 19). It is consulted through the Sistema de Información de la Gaceta de la Propiedad Industrial (SIGA, the Industrial Property Gazette Information System), which IMPI describes as free.
Classes: how Mexico applies the Nice Classification
Mexico classifies goods and services under the Nice Classification, the international system set up by the Nice Agreement, which has applied to Mexico since 21 March 2001. Article 176 of the LFPPI refers to a classification of goods and services, and Article 94 of the 2026 Reglamento (implementing regulation) of the LFPPI makes it the Nice Classification in force. WIPO lists NCL (13-2026), in force since 1 January 2026, as the current version.
Mexico runs a single-class system. Each application must list specific goods or services belonging to one class (Article 108, fraction I, of the regulation), so a brand used on goods and on services sits in at least two files, each with its own number and history. Goods and services are named as they appear in the Nice Alphabetical List or in the supplementary list IMPI publishes in the Gazette, or with analogous descriptions (fraction II).
Class numbers do not decide conflicts. Article 173, fraction XVIII, of the LFPPI makes a sign unregistrable if it is identical or confusingly similar to an earlier pending mark or aviso, or to a registered one in force, applied to the same or similar goods or services. Similar goods are often classified apart, so run the search in every class where the goods, their accessories and the services that sell them could sit. Since the April 2026 amendments, an applicant for a mark made only of Latin letters or numbers states that it used standard characters, and is treated as reserving use in any typeface or size (Article 214, fraction VIII).
Reading the file
The search result gives a file number, and the file holds the facts. The files of registrations in force and of published trade names are open to consultation unless they contain trade secrets or confidential information (Article 23). Anyone may obtain simple or certified copies of documents in the files of granted or registered rights on payment of the official fee, and where a document holds personal data IMPI may deliver a public version with that data removed (Article 34 of the regulation).
Read the application first. Article 214 requires the applicant's name, address and email, and the denomination or description of the mark. Then read what happened to it: IMPI's requirements and objections, any opposition, the applicant's answers and the resolution. For a registration, read the declaration of use and the recorded transfers and licenses, because the goods still protected and the holder of record can differ from the certificate. Our guide to IP due diligence covers those rules. A file whose processing is suspended may be waiting on a nullity, lapse or cancellation action against an earlier registration (Article 228, fraction II).
Pending applications, the Gazette and the opposition window
Pending applications count. Article 173, fraction XVIII, protects a mark already in process of registration as well as a registered one, so an application someone else filed last month can block a name. Under Article 221, as amended by the decree of 3 April 2026, IMPI publishes each application in the Gazette no later than ten days after receipt and gives anyone with an interest one non-extendable month from publication to oppose it on the grounds in Articles 12 and 173. The publication gives the file number, the filing date, the sign and the class (Article 112 of the regulation).
Two gaps follow. An application filed in the days before a search may not yet be published. Under Article 4 of the Paris Convention, to which Mexico has been party since 1903, a person who filed a trademark application in another member country has six months to file in Mexico with priority from that date, and another filing made in the interval does not defeat it. Run the search again shortly before filing, signing or announcing, and check the Gazette for publications between the two searches.
For a brand owner about to enter Mexico, the month runs from the date publication takes effect, not from the date the owner learns of the filing. Watching the Gazette for filings that copy the brand is the way to use that month. After registration, the owner's route is a nullity action, which our IP due diligence guide describes for filings by distributors and agents.
Registering a mark in Mexico: the path in outline
Article 12 of the 2026 regulation allows applications to be filed on paper at IMPI's offices or at the Centros de Fomento Económico para el Bienestar (federal economic development centers) in the states, by certified mail or courier, and electronically under the agreement IMPI issues for that purpose. An IMPI agreement published on 28 September 2026 merges the application procedures for ordinary, collective and certification marks into one for traditional and one for non-traditional marks. Its transitional rules say those procedures are filed and processed physically, under the procedure in force before the agreement, until filing through the Ventanilla Digital Nacional de Inversiones (VDNI, the National Digital Investment Window) is working. Confirm the open channel with IMPI before filing.
Publication and the opposition month come first. Under Article 225, as amended in April 2026, the formal examination begins once the opposition month ends, and the substantive examination of whether the mark is registrable follows it. If the application falls short of a requirement, meets an impediment or draws an opposition, IMPI tells the applicant in writing and gives two months to respond with evidence. A further two months are available without a request, on payment of the fee for the month in which the applicant complies, and an application left unanswered is treated as abandoned (Article 226).
Where IMPI issues no requirement and no one opposes, it must resolve the application within five months of filing (Article 229 Bis), a deadline that also applies to avisos and trade names. A refusal is communicated in writing with its reasons (Article 230). The decree took effect the day after publication, and matters pending at that date are concluded under the rules in force when they began. A registration then lasts ten years and must be kept alive by declarations of use, as our IP due diligence guide explains.
International registrations designating Mexico
Mexico has applied the Madrid Protocol since 19 February 2013, so a foreign owner can extend an international registration to Mexico through WIPO. Mexico declared an 18-month period to notify a refusal of protection. IMPI's guide published by WIPO on 17 April 2025 states that, because Mexico's system is single-class, each class of an international registration designating Mexico becomes a separate national file.
Those files can be found from the international registration number. IMPI's guide uses the advanced search ("Búsqueda avanzada") on IMPI's website, under the option "Otras", where the international registration number lists the national files linked to it. The certificate of protection can then be downloaded from the file free of charge. WIPO's Madrid Monitor shows the status of protection in each designated member and the full history of transactions on the registration, so a mark found by number should be checked in both.
Trade names and commercial slogans
The LFPPI protects avisos comerciales through registration and nombres comerciales through publication (Article 2, fraction I), and IMPI's powers include publishing trade names (Article 5, fraction I). The regulation applies the trademark rules to both where no special rule exists (Articles 102 and 104). According to IMPI's 2024 report, both appear in Marcanet, so a name search should include them.
Publication of a trade name requires proof of use. The request carries a document issued by a persona fedataria pública (a notary or other officer empowered to certify facts) stating the owner, the name, the location or web address of the business, its giro preponderante (main line of business) and the date of first use (Article 103 of the regulation). IMPI must publish within five months of the request or of the answer to its last requirement (Article 209, as amended in April 2026).
The register does not mark the limit of a trade name's effect. Article 173, fraction XIX, makes unregistrable a sign identical or confusingly similar to a trade name applied to a business whose main activity is making or selling the goods, or providing the services, that the mark would cover, provided the trade name was used before the mark's filing date or declared date of use. The test in that fraction is prior use, not publication. A local business trading under a name it never asked IMPI to publish appears nowhere in Marcanet, and its prior use is still a ground on which an application can be opposed.
What a clean search does not tell you
Who uses the name without a registration
A third party that used the same or a confusingly similar mark in Mexico in good faith, without interruption, from before the filing date can later claim it under Article 175, fraction I, as our IP due diligence guide explains. IMPI's records cannot reveal that user. Inquiries where the goods are sold can.
Filings by distributors and agents
A Mexican distributor, agent or representative that filed the foreign owner's mark in its own name holds the registration until it is transferred or annulled, and Article 258, fraction V, gives the owner a nullity action where the filing was made without express consent. Before appointing a distributor or licensee, ask it to list every Mexican filing in its name or its group's, check each against the register, and search the brand and its variants for filings by others in the same trade. Then verify the company behind any filing that matters and run a background check on the people who control it.
Use, and who sells
A registration says nothing about whether the mark is in use. Article 121 of the 2026 regulation treats a mark as in use when the goods or services it distinguishes are on the market or available in Mexico under it in the quantity and manner that commercial custom dictates. A registration held by someone who does not use the mark may be open to a lapse action. A mark in heavy use by an unknown seller may point to a prior user, a former distributor or an infringer. Both facts are found where the goods are sold, not in the register.
A search is not an opinion
Whether a mark can be registered is decided by IMPI in the substantive examination (Article 225) against the grounds in Article 173. Whether a use infringes someone's rights is a question for trademark counsel and, if contested, for IMPI and the courts. A search report states what the records showed on the date of the search.
Where a search finds a conflicting mark, the 2026 regulation lets the applicant file the written consent of the earlier holder, with rules for coexistence, either with the application or in answer to an IMPI objection (Articles 88 to 90). Obtaining that consent, or buying the mark, starts with knowing who holds it and whether it uses it, and the holder's existing disputes are found through a litigation search.
Where we come in
Warden Consulting is not trademark counsel. We do not file trademarks or give opinions on registrability or infringement. From our office in the World Trade Center in Mexico City, our investigating lawyers take on the investigative side of a trademark question as part of due diligence in Mexico. We identify and investigate the holder of a conflicting mark or a squatter filing, including the company behind it, its owners and its litigation.
In the field, our investigators in Mexico establish whether a mark is in use in the market and who sells goods under it, and we check distributors and licensees before the client signs. We report the records against the market findings, so that the client's trademark counsel can decide whether to file, oppose, negotiate consent or seek nullity. To scope a matter, contact our Mexico City office.
Frequently asked questions
How do I search for a trademark in Mexico?
Search IMPI's Marcanet database for each word element of the mark and its variants, in every class where the goods could sit, then read the files in ViDoc and check recent Gazette publications through SIGA. Marcanet holds registered and pending marks, avisos comerciales and published trade names. Repeat the search shortly before filing or signing.
Is the IMPI trademark search free?
Consultation is free. Article 22 of the LFPPI requires IMPI to make its register available through electronic databases free of charge, and IMPI describes SIGA, its Gazette system, as free to consult. Simple or certified copies of documents in a file are charged at the official fee (Article 34 of the 2026 regulation).
Can one Mexican trademark application cover several classes?
No. Each application lists specific goods or services from a single Nice class (Article 108 of the 2026 regulation), and IMPI opens a separate national file for each class of an international registration designating Mexico.
How long does trademark registration take in Mexico?
Where IMPI issues no requirement and no one opposes, it must resolve the application within five months of filing (Article 229 Bis of the LFPPI, added on 3 April 2026). A requirement, objection or opposition opens a two-month response period, which the applicant can extend by two more months on payment of the fee.
How long do I have to oppose a trademark application in Mexico?
One non-extendable month from the date the application's publication in the Gazette takes effect (Article 221 of the LFPPI). IMPI publishes applications no later than ten days after receipt, so a brand owner who watches the Gazette can use the whole month.
Do Madrid Protocol registrations appear in IMPI's records?
Yes. IMPI opens a national file for each class of an international registration designating Mexico, and its guide shows how to find those files on its website by the international registration number. Mexico has applied the Madrid Protocol since 19 February 2013.
This article is general information, not legal advice.