Plant Variety Protection in European Union, Plant Varieties, Plant Seeds, Council Regulation, Plant Breeders, Plant Rights

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Intellectual Property Rights - IPRs for Plant Breeding
Intellectual Property Rights - IPRs for Plant Breeding - Introduction
Options for a 'Sui Generis' System as an IPR
TRIPS 'Sui Generis' and Other International Treaties
Plant Variety Protection and UPOV
Terminator Technology for Speed for Seed Protection
Comparison of UPOV Conventions Indian PVP and FRA and the Patent Law
Plant Variety Protection in European Union

	Plant Variety Protection in European Union In UK, a major stimulus to plant breeding was provided by the introduction of plant variety rights by the adoption of the Plant Varieties and Seeds Act, 1964. Other countries in Europe adopted similar legislations after signing UPOV Convention 1961.
This allowed plant breeders to protect their new varieties from piracy and plagiarism, and to license these new varieties to others for commercial purposes. The protection provided by the Plant Varieties and Seed Act1964 was weaker than patents; for instance, the rights did not extend to the use of a protected variety but only to its sale. It was recognized in Europe and elsewhere that the plant breeding is not an 'inventive' process (as in industry) and therefore, a plant variety is not patentable, but can be protected by Plant Breeders' Rights (PBRs), provided it fulfils, the criteria of distinctness, uniformity and stability (DUS), In revised criteria adopted in UPOV 199 I, novelty has been added to this list of criteria (UPOV, 1991).
In 1990, the European Commission (BC) introduced a proposal for a 'Council Regulation' setting up a system of EC plant-variety rights for a single European market. This was intended to complement the existing national systems, so that a plant breeder may obtain protection throughout the EC from a single application to a central office. This proposal had to be substantially modified later to make it compatible with the provisions of UPOV 1991. The resulting 'Council Regulation' adopted by the 'Council of European Communities' came into effect on 27 April, 1994 (Council of European communities, 1994).
This regulation implements full provisions of UPOV Conventions 1991, before any member state has done so. This will provide fro the extension of the scope of breeders’ rights to include the following s given in UPOV 1991 (Article 14(1)(a)): (i) production and reproduction (multiplication); (ii) conditioning for purpose of propagation; (iii) offering for sale; (iv) selling or other forms of marketing; (v) exporting (from the European Community in case of EC system); (vi) importing (into community); (vii) stocking for any of the above purpose.
	In Europe, under European Patent Convention (EPC, 1973), during 1982, 200 plant patent applications were considered and 56 patents were granted under Article 53b of EPC.

This was despite the fact that the Article 53b of EPC allows for process patents and does not allow patents on plant varieties. However, in March 1995, the Appeals Board of the European Patent Office (EPO) ruled that a patent granted to Plant Genetic Systems. (PGS) in 1990 for genetically engineered herbicide-tolerant rapeseed is too broad and can cover all the plants and seeds resulting from this process. The above decision of EPO will have an impact on past and future patent claims in Europe. The process patent (e.g. manipulation of plant cells and inserted genes) will not extent to seeds or to further advanced generations of plants. A comparison difference in patent laws of Europe and USA.

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