1) OBJECTIVE
To establish at Community level a special form of industrial
property rights for new plant varieties that have been bred or
discovered.
2) CONTENTS
1. The plant variety right results from the breeding or
discovery of plant variety.
2. The Regulation includes substantive and operational
provisions, a section covering impact on other laws, and
financial and institutional provisions.
3. The substantive provisions stipulate that the provisions on
Community protection shall be available for varieties that are
distinct, homogeneous, stable, new and for which a variety
denomination exists.
4. The person entitled to Community protection shall be the
breeder or discoverer or his successor in title. If the variety
was bred by more than one person there shall be joint
entitlement by these persons or their successors in title.
5. The rights granted are uniform. Both the internationally
recognized principle of "breeder's exemption" for new varieties
developed from protected varieties and the generally accepted
practice of "agricultural exemption" for farm-saved seed are
confirmed. Under this principle once a holder breeds a new plant
variety no third party may, without his consent, reproduce or
multiply the variety or put it up for sale without payment of a
breeder's fee to the holder. Another breeder may use the variety
to create a further variety.
6. Rules covering the use of variety denominations and both
duration and termination of protection.
7. The Regulation defines:
* Community protection of plant variety rights as an object of
the holder's property (treatment as a property right under
national law, transfer of right to one or more successors in
title, contractual exploitation rights, etc.);
* rules on the granting of compulsory exploitation rights.
8. The Community scheme will be operated by a Community Plant
Variety Office.
9. Status, duties, structure and management of Office.
10. An Administrative Council, consisting of representatives of
the Member States and the Commission, will be set up to advise
the Office and monitor its activities. Its members will be able
to call on the services of advisers and experts.
11. Community legal protection will be provided by Boards of
Appeal and by reference to the Court of Justice.
12. Rules of procedure are given:
* for applications to the Office, its formal and technical
examination of these, its decision and the future follow-up
action to be carried out;
* for reference to the Board of Appeal.
General rules are also laid down covering oral procedure, taking
of evidence, etc.
13. Provisions on the fees to be charged by the Office, on a
Register of Community Plant Variety Rights and on other means of
information (periodical publications, documents open to public
inspection, etc.).
14. Relationships to national plant variety rights and to
patents are defined.
15. In the matters of jurisdiction and procedure in legal
actions relating to civil law claims the Regulation refers to
the relevant international and national provisions. It also
determines entitlement to make a civil law claim for
infringement.
16. Provisions on penalization of infringements of national
industrial property rights are to be made applicable to
infringement of Community plant variety rights by 1 July 1992 at
the latest.
17. The Office's budget is initially to be made up of fee income
and a subsidy from the Community's general budget. It is hoped
at a later date to achieve self-financing of the Office's
variable costs.
Source : European Commission - Info92 - 02/96�