Trend in plant variety applications worldwide 2008-2022

Plant variety is a legal term, following the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) Convention. Recognition of a cultivated

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

cultivar A cultivar is a kind of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and which retains those traits when Plant propagation, propagated. Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root a ...

) as a "variety" in this particular sense provides its

breeder A breeder is a person who selectively breeds carefully selected mates, normally of the same breed, to sexually reproduce offspring with specific, consistently replicable qualities and characteristics. This might be as a farmer, agriculturalist ...

with some legal protection, so-called

plant breeders' rights Plant breeders' rights (PBR), also known as plant variety rights (PVR), are rights granted in certain places to the breeder of a new variety of plant that give the breeder exclusive control over the propagating material (including seed, cuttin ...

, depending to some extent on the internal legislation of the UPOV signatory countries, such as the Plant Variety Protection Act in the US. This "variety" (which will differ in status according to national law) should not be confused with the international

taxonomic rank In biology, taxonomic rank (which some authors prefer to call nomenclatural rank because ranking is part of nomenclature rather than taxonomy proper, according to some definitions of these terms) is the relative or absolute level of a group of or ...

of " variety" (regulated by the ''

International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants The ''International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (ICN or ICNafp) is the set of rules and recommendations dealing with the formal botanical names that are given to plants, fungi and a few other groups of organisms, all tho ...

''), nor with the term "

" (regulated by the '' International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants''). Some horticulturists use "variety" imprecisely; for example, viticulturists almost always refer to grape cultivars as " grape varieties". The EU has established a system that grants

intellectual property rights Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

to new plant varieties called Community plant variety right. It is valid throughout the EU and is in line with

TRIPS Trip may refer to: Arts and entertainment Books Fictional characters * Trip (''Pokémon''), a ''Pokémon'' character * Trip (Power Rangers), in the American television series ''Time Force Power Rangers'' * Trip, in the 2013 film '' Metallica T ...

/WTO agreements and the UPOV 1991 convention. Around 27,260 plant variety applications were filed worldwide in 2022, up 8.2% on 2021 – a seventh consecutive year of growth. China contributed the majority of global growth, followed by the United Kingdom.

References

External links

International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV)

Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO)
Legal terminology Biological patent law Agricultural law {{law-term-stub

See also

References

External links