5. Is it possible to protect a biological breeding process or a product obtained by such a process?

5.1 Essentially biological production process

The law excludes from patentability processes for obtaining essentially biological plants and animals.

If essentially biological breeding processes are not patentable, the difficulty lies in interpreting the term "essentially", which leads to an assessment of the extent of human intervention in the claimed process. By way of example, INPI's examination guidelines state :

• that a process comprising only the stages of crossing, backcrossing and cultivation of a plant, in which human intervention is limited to the choice of starting plant varieties and their selection, constitutes an essentially biological process for obtaining plants, not susceptible of protection;...