The government of Javier Milei has activated negotiations to try to get the Argentine Chamber of Deputies to approve the country's accession to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in April. This is a sensitive piece of the trade understanding sealed with the United States and one of the chapters that concentrates the most political, business, and diplomatic pressure within the Casa Rosada itself. That date began to run as a political clock in Balcarce 50, where it is recognized that the intellectual property front is one of the most delicate of the entire bilateral package. In this context, the official bloc discusses not only how to approve the treaty, but also with what legislative engineering to do so. On the other hand, national laboratories resist because they fear losing margin in the generics business, giving up competitiveness and becoming more exposed to long-term foreign patents. The government wants to show full alignment with the United States, meet deadlines, and show that Argentina is abandoning old regulatory resistances. International laboratories push for accession to the PCT and the flexibilization of the regime because they understand that it strengthens the legal security of their developments and improves the protection of their innovations. Today, the country is among the States party to the Paris Convention that still do not integrate the PCT, a rarity that the official bloc considers uncomfortable in the face of the political and commercial alignment that Milei has deepened with the Donald Trump administration. Argentina remains outside the PCT, a system administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that allows for an international patent application with effects in multiple jurisdictions, although it does not replace the final decision that each country then makes. This was a way to open the door to a more flexible scheme without dynamiting the existing market in one fell swoop. It is precisely there that the harshest lobby appears. This delay also deters investments that Argentina needs. The external pressure also has a concrete calendar. INPI dictated Resolution 75/2026, which updated tariffs from April 1, created the Tariff Unit of Industrial Property (UMAPI) and ordered its effective application from May 1, with monthly adjustments tied to the INDEC CPI. In the Chamber of Deputies there is a new file, 0821-D-2026, while the historical precedent of the Senate's half sanction in 1998 also persists.
