Brussels, October 11, 2011
What was meant as a legal discussion ended in a political debate on agricultural practices and patents at the EU Conference on “EU Plant Variety Rights in the 21st century”. The Conference was very well attended by more than 150 participants from the sector – breeders, farmers, growers, politicians, officials and stakeholders.
From the very beginning of the Conference the credo of the officials was: “The CPVR system is a very well-functioning system, all are happy with it”.
Once more it was only CIOPORA which pinpointed the shortcomings of the current CPVR legislation: confusion in regard to variety constituents, limited protection of harvested material, no protection of processed material, ineffective provisional protection, too broad exhaustion, and unclear EDV-provisions, to name only a few.
However, in his conclusions the representative of the EU Commission focused on the farmers´ exemption, the improvement of enforcement, the duration of protection, and a better transparence in regard to patents. Except the theme “farmers´ exemption”, none of the other is controversial.
While the duration of protection is a minor weakness of the system and its improvement will not harm any stakeholder, the points “enforcement” and “transparency” are topics which are of little relevance to the EU Commission itself, but to national governments (enforcement) and the European Patent Office.
A EU Commission representative also underlined that potential changes to the CPVR cannot be expected before a period of at least 3 years, because the matter is not a top-priority for the Commission and the EU member-states. CIOPORA shall use the time to exert influence on the competent bodies and try to bring the really important shortcomings into their focus.
Source: CIOPORA
