Lack of patent protection

ARMAGE2 is a Spanish company that produces farming mechanical tools and owns patents and utility models concerning some of their technology, which they have registered in Europe, Argentina and Brazil. Their Argentinean supplier offered to start distributing two patented products in Uruguay, as they considered this country to be a promising market for these products. Unfortunately, the patents had been applied for in Spain more than 12 months before. Therefore, ARMAGE2 could not claim priority for their Uruguayan patent application. Moreover, the content of their Spanish patents was part of the state of the art. Hence, patent applications in Uruguay were likely to be refused due to lack of novelty. Bearing this in mind, the company was not sure whether to commercialise in Uruguay or not in the absence of patent protection of these products.