The Long Road to the PCT: Argentina’s Latest Steps

In our April 2026 newsletter, we reported the prospect of a “long-awaited member” joining the PCT family, as Argentina looked likely to end its long-standing absence from the international patent filing system. That expectation has now translated into legislative motion. On August 26, 2026, the Chamber of Deputies approved the Patent Cooperation Treaty by 147 votes to 93, acting on a commitment Argentina made earlier this year under its reciprocal trade agreement with the United States. Approval came with an amendment, however: Chapter II was excluded, similarly to  Uruguay upon its own accession.

Argentina’s prolonged absence from the PCT has long stood as an anomaly: Argentine applicants have had little alternative but to rely on the direct Paris route, missing out on the procedural efficiencies, cost savings, and strategic timing the PCT offers. That absence reflects a broader development: the steady incorporation of intellectual property into the international trade agenda, in which trade instruments, from TRIPS onwards, have become a principal vehicle for advancing accession to international filing systems such as the PCT. Indeed, with 159 Contracting States accounting for the vast majority of the world’s cross-border patent filings, the PCT stands as a near-universal standard. For a non-member, remaining outside the system works as a barrier to international trade, affecting both its own nationals and foreign applicants.

That earlier commitment to submit the Treaty to Congress originates in the United States–Argentina Agreement on Reciprocal Trade and Investment (“ARTI”), signed on February 5, 2026. Framed primarily as a trade instrument, the ARTI nonetheless embeds a wide-ranging intellectual property chapter that may amount to the most significant restructuring of Argentina’s IP regime in recent memory. At its core lies a concrete undertaking on patents: Argentina agreed to submit the PCT to its National Congress for consideration and a ratification vote by April 30, 2026.

The precise legal force of that commitment, however, rewards careful reading. Trade agreements vary considerably in the language they use to bind parties to international IP treaties. The EU–Mercosur Agreement, for instance, requires each Party to “make best efforts to accede” to the PCT, a soft formulation that stops short of making accession a condition of the bargain. By contrast, the ARTI adopts a markedly firmer posture, tying the PCT to a fixed deadline: it requires the Treaty to be put to a vote while remaining silent as to the outcome. This constructive ambiguity is where the promise of the Agreement meets the realities of domestic politics, in which certain local industrial sectors have lobbied against Argentina’s joining the PCT for decades.

Although delayed, the Treaty is now moving forward in the Argentine Congress. No date has yet been fixed for its consideration by the Senate, but the PCT stands closer to becoming a reality in Argentina than at any point in the past. Should the bill complete its legislative process, local and foreign applicants will at last be able to use the PCT route in Argentina.

We will continue to report on developments as they occur.