A Few Numbers on Plant Variety Protection in Brazil

Increasingly new and improved plant varieties have been researched and developed by players from several sectors of agribusiness, including public and private breeders. The resulting knowledge may be protected in various mutually complementary ways as, for example, distribution networks, marketing strategies and Intellectual Property (IP) rights. Within the protection of plants by IP rights, we highlightthe plant variety protection (PVP).

PVP in Brazil is possible in accordance with PVP Law no. 9,456 of 04.25.1997 that incorporates the provisions of the 1978 Act of the UPOV (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants), which is an international organism for PVP of which Brazil is a member since April 1999. As a result of accession to the UPOV, an automatic reciprocity was established between Brazil and the other contracting states. From this fact, on the one hand, all countries that are members of the UPOV ensure reciprocal treatment regarding protection of the Brazilian varieties and, on the other hand, Brazil also ensures reciprocal treatment concerning protection of the varieties from these countries, thus facilitating the exchange of new materials that are generated by means of Brazilian and foreign research.

The protection of the variety encompasses the reproductive or vegetative propagating material of the whole plant, and it affords its holder the right to commercial reproduction in the national territory, third parties being prohibited during the term of protection from producing for commercial purposes, offering for sale or marketing propagating material of the plant variety without its authorization.

Counted from the grant of the PVP provisional certificate, the term of protection of the variety is 18 years for vines and fruit, forest and ornamental trees, including in each case the rootstock thereof, and 15 years for the remaining species. The competent authority for granting PVP is the National Service of Plant Variety Protection – SNPC, which is within the Ministry of Agriculture.

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