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El Salvador is hosting the 9th Ministerial Meeting on Intellectual Property 2026, a regional gathering that brings together representatives from Central America and the Dominican Republic to promote the use of intellectual property as a tool for attracting investment, strengthening trade, and expanding exports. The event is being held in coordination with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) under the theme: “Intellectual Property as a Catalyst for Investment, Trade, and Exports”.
During the meeting, Minister of Economy María Luisa Hayem highlighted the importance of coordinating the work of national intellectual property offices with agencies tasked with promoting investment, as well as institutions responsible for economic and trade policy. The goal is to integrate the protection of creations, designs, and innovations into the economic development strategies of the participating countries.
Intellectual property encompasses rights that protect creations of the minds such as inventions, trademarks, industrial designs, and other forms of innovation. Its economic significance lies in the fact that it allows companies, entrepreneurs, and inventors to safeguard their developments and leverage them commercially, which can foster the creation of new businesses and facilitate access to markets.
A key point highlighted by the salvadoran government concerns the country’s position regarding the protection of designs. According to the information released, El Salvador is the second country in the world, and the first in the Americas, to adopt the WIPO-led Riyadh Treaty on the Law of Designs. This international instrument is designed to facilitate and harmonize specific procedures related to the registration of industrial designs.
The meeting includes the participation of Daren Tang, Director General of WIPO, who is delivering the keynote address and moderating the dialogue among the attending ministers. The exchange aims to identify opportunities for regional cooperation and to strengthen the relationship between institutions that protect intellectual property and those focused on promoting investment and foreign trade.
As part of the meeting, Minister Hayem and her counterparts from Central America and the Dominican Republic signed a Ministerial Declaration to promote intellectual property as a tool for attracting investment, trade, and exports. The agreement outlines a shared course of action to place greater emphasis on the protection of innovations within the region’s economic policies.
At the national level, El Salvador has an Intellectual Property Law that provides for the creation of the Instituto Salvadoreño de la Propiedad Intelectual, as well as a Estrategia Nacional de Propiedad Intelectual para el período 2024-2029. These instruments are part of a framework through which the country seeks to strengthen the protection of rights over creations and innovations and link them to economic development.
Hayem noted that the support provided by WIPO makes it possible to address the issue from both a technical and a strategic perspective, and in collaboration with other countries, to create conditions under which innovations originating in the region can be protected. The challenge will be to translate these ministerial agreements and regional cooperation into concrete actions that enable companies, entrepreneurs, and inventors to leverage intellectual property to develop their projects and access commercial opportunities.
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