Reservation of rights

A separate registration most people have never heard of

Mexican law offers a reservation of rights to exclusive use, granted by Indautor, for a category of things that neither trademark nor ordinary copyright handles well. It is a genuinely distinct registration, and overlooking it leaves gaps that competitors can occupy.

What it covers

• Titles of periodical publications: magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and by extension recurring digital publications.
• Fictional or symbolic characters, with their name and their visual features.
• Artistic names and the names of groups.
• Promotional advertising schemes, meaning the mechanics of a promotion rather than its copy.
• Characteristics of human characters used in performances.

Why it matters commercially

A character is the clearest case. The drawings are protected by copyright and the logo may be a trademark, but the character as a character, with its name and identity, is the asset that licensing deals are actually written about. The reservation is what makes that asset clean enough to license.

Artistic names matter for the same reason, and the people who need them most are usually the ones least likely to have registered anything, because the career grew faster than the paperwork.

It has to be kept alive

Reservations run for a defined term and have to be renewed, and some categories also require proof of continued use. The terms differ by category, which is exactly why they lapse: there is no single date to remember. We calculate the dates for each reservation you hold and tell you before they fall due.

What we do

We assess which figure fits what you actually have, file the reservation, and coordinate it with the trademark position so the two do not contradict each other.