Diagnostic

Software and copyright: what the law protects, what it does not and what registration is for

Code is protected from the moment it is written. Registration does not create the right, but it determines who can prove it and against whom it can be enforced.

LEXURE Industrial and Intellectual Property Practice Team 7 min read Regulatory status verified in 2026

In a tech­nol­ogy com­pany, the main asset is the code, and Mex­i­can law pro­tects it as copy­right, not as an inven­tion. That dif­fer­ence deter­mines what a com­peti­tor can and cannot be pre­vented from doing, and which doc­u­ments the com­pany needs to do so.

What the law requires

Soft­ware is a work. Under Arti­cle 101 of the Fed­eral Copy­right Law (Ley Fed­eral del Dere­cho de Autor), a com­puter pro­gram is the orig­i­nal expres­sion, in any lan­guage or code, of a set of instruc­tions for a com­puter to per­form a task. It is pro­tected on the same terms as a lit­er­ary work, in source code and object code, includ­ing arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence pro­grams, under the amend­ment pub­lished on May 14, 2026 (Arti­cle 102). By con­trast, the Fed­eral Law for the Pro­tec­tion of Indus­trial Prop­erty (Ley Fed­eral de Pro­tec­ción a la Propiedad Indus­trial) expressly excludes com­puter pro­grams from the con­cept of inven­tion (Arti­cle 47), so that, as a gen­eral rule, code is not patented.

What it pro­tects and what it does not. Copy­right pro­tects the expres­sion (the spe­cific code, its struc­ture and its doc­u­men­ta­tion), but not the idea, the method or the func­tion­al­ity in them­selves. Thus, a com­peti­tor who writes from scratch a pro­gram that does the same thing does not infringe for that reason alone; one who copies or adapts the code does.

The owner’s rights. The owner may autho­rize or pro­hibit the repro­duc­tion of the pro­gram, its trans­la­tion, adap­ta­tion or mod­i­fi­ca­tion, its dis­tri­bu­tion, its decom­pi­la­tion, reverse engi­neer­ing and dis­as­sem­bly, and its com­mu­ni­ca­tion to the public (Arti­cle 106). The legit­i­mate user may make the copies autho­rized by the license or a single backup copy (Arti­cle 105).

Data­bases. Data­bases that, by reason of the selec­tion or arrange­ment of their con­tents, con­sti­tute intel­lec­tual cre­ations are pro­tected as com­pi­la­tions, although the pro­tec­tion does not extend to the data them­selves (Arti­cle 107). Those that are not orig­i­nal are pro­tected for the exclu­sive use of who­ever com­piled them for five years (Arti­cle 108).

Who owns it. The author is the nat­u­ral person who cre­ated the work (Arti­cle 12). If the pro­gram was cre­ated by employ­ees in the per­for­mance of their duties, the eco­nomic rights belong to the employer, unless oth­er­wise agreed (Arti­cle 103). If an out­side party cre­ated it, a work-for-hire agree­ment (obra por encargo) or a writ­ten assign­ment is required (Arti­cles 30 and 83).

Writ­ten form of licenses. Con­tracts trans­fer­ring eco­nomic rights and use licenses must always be exe­cuted in writ­ing, or they are null and void by oper­a­tion of law (Arti­cle 30). In the soft­ware busi­ness, where licenses are accepted online, that require­ment is met, under Arti­cle 93 of the Com­mer­cial Code (Código de Com­er­cio), with a data mes­sage that remains intact and acces­si­ble for later con­sul­ta­tion. For that reason, it is advis­able to keep, for each cus­tomer, the exact ver­sion of the license it accepted and the evi­dence of its accep­tance.

Reg­is­tra­tion. Pro­tec­tion exists from the moment the work is fixed in a medium, even if it is not reg­is­tered (Arti­cles 5o. and 162). The Public Copy­right Reg­istry (Reg­istro Público del Dere­cho de Autor) pro­vides legal cer­tainty and public notice for works and acts (Arti­cle 162), and assign­ments must be recorded to be effec­tive against third par­ties (Arti­cle 32). For the com­pany, reg­is­tra­tion pro­vides evi­dence of author­ship and date, and record­ing the chain of title allows it to show that the code belongs to it.

What to do and by when

  1. Iden­tify the soft­ware com­po­nents that gen­er­ate value for your com­pany and deter­mine whether they were cre­ated by employ­ees, out­side par­ties or founders.
  2. Verify that each out­side party has signed a work-for-hire agree­ment or a writ­ten assign­ment.
  3. Reg­is­ter the main ver­sions of your soft­ware and its doc­u­men­ta­tion with the National Copy­right Insti­tute (INDAUTOR).
  4. Record the rel­e­vant assign­ments so that they are effec­tive against third par­ties.
  5. Review your cus­tomer licenses to spec­ify which copies, mod­i­fi­ca­tions and uses they autho­rize and which they pro­hibit, includ­ing reverse engi­neer­ing.
  6. If your busi­ness model depends on data­bases, doc­u­ment their selec­tion process and struc­ture, which is what the law pro­tects.
  7. Pro­tect as a trade secret (secreto indus­trial) what­ever should not be dis­closed in a reg­is­tra­tion, such as algo­rithms or param­e­ters, through con­fi­den­tial­ity mea­sures.

Recommendations to mitigate risk

With­out a doc­u­mented chain of title, the com­pany may be unable to prove that the soft­ware is its own before a third party, an investor or a buyer. To act against anyone who copies its code, the law pro­vides an admin­is­tra­tive route: using, repro­duc­ing or exploit­ing a com­puter pro­gram with­out the owner’s con­sent, for profit, is an infringe­ment in com­mer­cial mat­ters (Arti­cle 231, sec­tion VII), which the Mex­i­can Insti­tute of Indus­trial Prop­erty (IMPI) pun­ishes with a fine of five thou­sand to forty thou­sand days of min­i­mum wage (Arti­cle 232, sec­tion I). Under the con­sti­tu­tional de-index­a­tion amend­ment pub­lished on Jan­u­ary 27, 2016, that unit is under­stood to refer to the Unit of Mea­sure­ment and Update (UMA), mean­ing 5,000 to 40,000 UMA (MXN 586,550 to MXN 4,692,400). The com­pany, how­ever, can enforce that penalty against an infringer only if it first proves that it is the owner.

Self-assessment

Answer yes or no about your own com­pany.

  1. Do you know who wrote each rel­e­vant com­po­nent of your soft­ware?
  2. Do you have signed work-for-hire or assign­ment agree­ments with all out­side devel­op­ers?
  3. Have you reg­is­tered the main ver­sions with the National Copy­right Insti­tute?
  4. Have you recorded the assign­ments of rights you acquired?
  5. Do your cus­tomer licenses expressly pro­hibit reverse engi­neer­ing and mod­i­fi­ca­tion?
  6. Do you pro­tect as a trade secret what should not be reg­is­tered?

How we approach it at LEXURE

We design your com­pany’s soft­ware pro­tec­tion strat­egy by com­bin­ing copy­right, trade secrets and con­tracts: what to reg­is­ter, what to keep con­fi­den­tial, how to doc­u­ment own­er­ship and how to draft licenses that allow you to defend it. We deliver a chain-of-title file ready for an invest­ment review or a claim.

If code is your com­pany’s main asset, sched­ule a diag­nos­tic meet­ing with us and let’s review how it is pro­tected.

Schedule a diagnostic meeting See our service lines

Legal basis

  1. Federal Copyright Law, last amended DOF May 14, 2026, Articles 5o., 12, 30, 32, 83, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107, 108, 162, 231, section VII, and 232, section I. Current text (opens in a new tab)
  2. Federal Law for the Protection of Industrial Property, Article 47. Current text (opens in a new tab)
  3. Commercial Code, Article 93. Current text (opens in a new tab)
  4. Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, decree DOF January 27, 2016, third transitory article. Current text (opens in a new tab)
  5. Value of the Unit of Measurement and Update 2026, INEGI. Official publication (opens in a new tab)

This note is for information only and describes the law in force on the verification date. It is not legal advice on a specific matter. It is a translation of the Spanish original: Mexican law is published in Spanish, and the official Spanish texts prevail.

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