Würtenberger, Gert --- "Protection of plant innovations" [2017] ELECD 808; in Matthews, Duncan; Zech, Herbert (eds), "Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and the Life Sciences" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 121

Book Title: Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and the Life Sciences

Editor(s): Matthews, Duncan; Zech, Herbert

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781783479443

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Protection of plant innovations

Author(s): Würtenberger, Gert

Number of pages: 11

Abstract/Description:

Starting with the observations of the Augustinian monk Georg Johann Mendel in the mid-1890s that plants change some of their characteristics from generation to generation, plant breeding has developed as a science on its own. Given the scientific progress in the breeding of more productive varieties having certain resistance abilities to negative environmental influences in the systematic production of plant seeds, there was a strong economic interest in the development, breeding and marketing of new achievements of breeders, increasing the demand for the appropriate protection of the investments to develop better varieties. The increasing demand by breeders for appropriate protection, equivalent to patents, led to a resolution by the French Conseil International Scientifique Agricole drawing governments’ attention to the need for breeders to be rewarded by remuneration claims, for their achievements on the breeding field, if their results were used by others. Over decades, the demand for the protection of breeders’ achievements has resulted in a legal framework which protects innovations on the plant breeding field, by incorporating elements common in the field of intellectual property, taking into account, however, the fact that the object of protection is living material. Article 27(3)(b) of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) obliges members of the agreement ‘to provide for the protection of plant varieties either by patents or by an effective sui generis system or by any combination thereof’. It only permits members to exclude from patentability plants and animals other than microorganisms, and essentially biological processes for the production of plants or animals other than non-biological and microbiological processes.