Cuba Makes Patent Registration Easier

HAVANA TIMES, Feb 22 — Cuba eased requirements on the registration of patents issued to local inventors while it banned some scientific applications, such as human cloning, published the island’s Gaceta Official yesterday.

This updating of legislation includes such matters as the protection of inventions, designs, industrial models, plant varieties and the layout of integrated circuit designs.

Under the new regulations, patents cannot be obtained on animals, the industrial or commercial use of human embryos; diagnostic, therapeutic or surgical methods; or other solutions for protecting life or preventing environmental damage.

The island is framing this process around the need to implement the provisions on intellectual property issues upheld by the World Trade Organization, which it joined in 1995.