6. Plant variety protection

The creation of a variety requires an ever-increasing financial investment. Research or breeding establishments therefore aspire to protect the exploitation of their new varieties as much as possible, in order to avoid uncontrolled reproduction of the plant material they have created.

Plant varieties are excluded from patentability in Europe. A specific system of legal protection, known as "plant variety protection", was devised and adopted internationally in 1961. Any natural or legal person, or any foreign national whose registered office or place of business is in one of the 71 member countries of the International Union for the Protection of Plants (UPOV) or the European Union, can obtain a plant variety certificate (COV). Today, in Europe, certificates are mainly applied for at the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO), and a single certificate is valid for...