New Varieties of Plants as a competitive value

You only have to raise your head to see that enormous changes are occurring in agriculture. The increase in human population reveals that the traditional forms of exploitation are proving insufficient to meet people’s needs: it is increasingly necessary to optimise resources.

Finding new plant varieties that improve the performance of crops, extend the sowing and harvesting periods, preparing plants that are resistant to plagues and endemic diseases, and improving the food capabilities for consumption, entails an important effort that must be adequately protected as breeder's right with the corresponding regulations.

The path towards protecting your breeder' rights:

  • To obtain protection for a plant variety, it must overcome a technical examination (studies and field and laboratory tests).
  • Requirements: it must consist of a new variety that is different, homogeneous and stable.
  • The duration of examinations vary according to plant and country. In Spain it ranges between one and six years.
  • Registration in the Register of Protected Varieties grants ownership rights to its breeder, which provides them with exclusive production and marketing rights.
  • In Spain, exclusivity cannot be claimed if the marketing authorisation has not been obtained, which requires registration in the national Register.
  • The EU offers protection in all Member States by means of a single application that must be filed with the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO).

- The EU procedure does not substitute nor harmonise national procedures.
- EU/country protection is not accumulative.

  • International protection by means of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants:

- Managed by the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV)
- It is formed by 76 countries, amongst them, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.

  • New plant variety rights do not preclude the applicability of other rights:

- Trademark (to give a commercial name to the variety)
- Patent (if the process to obtain the plant variety is not essentially biological).

How can we help you?

  • Advising you on the filing, processing and attainment of rights throughout the entire world.
  • Defending your rights in administrative proceedings against third party oppositions and/or filing oppositions against new varieties that may infringe upon your rights.
  • Defending you before the Courts of Justice throughout the entire world against potential third party complaints or against third parties that may cause detriment to your rights as the breeder.
  • Providing you with a comprehensive plan to protect your plant varieties, as a registered breeder's rights, as a trademark, and as a patent, if possible.
  • Monitoring the proceedings of the different examinations to prove the registrability of your new plant variety right.
  • Coordinating the protection of your plant variety right globally.

H&A, your loyal guide in the complex framework applicable to protection of new plant varieties that are susceptible of global protection.

YOU MAY BE INTERESTED

At H&A we are trademarks. But also patents. And intellectual property. And digital law. And much more.
DISCOVER ALL OUR SERVICES