Breeders’ Group CIOPORA Redefining Its Position On IP

By Maëli Astruc for Intellectual Property Watch

The International Community of breeders of asexually reproduced ornamental and fruit plants (CIOPORA) is preparing a new position on intellectual property rights to respond to changes in the market and what it says is the need for greater protection for breeders.

The industry group is taking the view that the 1991 International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) is no longer up to date, it said. After an 18-month effort, CIOPORA announced in a press release this week that new draft papers on IP will be discussed at the group’s annual general meeting to be held from 31 March to 3 April in The Hague, Netherlands.

CIOPORA President Andrea Mansuino said, “The highest priority of this process is to ensure that CIOPORA’s new Position Papers on IP reflect the current opinions and interests of its members.” The group’s members are invited to participate in several workshops on the papers during the annual meeting.

Redefining CIOPORA’s position was considered necessary due to changing market conditions and the need for stronger protection of breeder’s innovations, the press release said. The draft papers up for adoption at the meeting concern issues such as, “Essentially Derived Varieties, Minimum Distance, Scope of Right, Patents for Plant Related Inventions, and Additional Requests, variety denominations, application and PBR granting process, DUS examinations, enforcement, and other related issues.”

The papers will go before a general IP session on 2 April, with the aim of eventually replacing the “CIOPORA Green Paper”. If not, the reform process will continue during 2014.

Subjects to be addressed in the open part of the annual meeting include: “IP strategy of the major producer of electronics, the issues of biodiversity and its role for the future of plant breeding, the FRAND-licensing of IP rights, [and] insight into the future of the global horticulture from the point of view of an experienced financier.”