Seeds of Change: New Opportunities for Commercializing PVRs in China
October 02, 2002 | BY
clpstaff &clp articlesOrganizing a predictable system for the development of agriculture is of pressing concern as China faces the new century. The legal environment is offering new chances for foreign plant breeders to commercialize their varieties in China.
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The last few years have witnessed unprecedented progress in the development of China's legal framework for protection of plant variety rights. Chinese regulators have been focused on creating a legal environment conducive to fostering domestic investment and technological innovation in the development of China's agricultural sector. But there is also good news for foreign plant breeders and rights holders as regulatory developments are bringing China's system for the protection of plant varieties more in line with international norms and practices.
Plant Variety Regulations
On October 1 1997, China adopted the Protection of New Varieties of Plants Regulations (the Plant Variety Regulations). For the first time in China, this legislation granted rights of exclusive possession to plant breeders for certain new varieties of plants. Until that time, China had paid little attention to intellectual property protection as part of the development of its agricultural sector, even though agriculture had been identified as the first of China's “ Four Modernizations” in the late 1970s and agricultural reforms had been targeted as a key element in building a modern state in the post-Mao era.
In contrast to the lack of reform until 1997, the period since then has seen rapid progress (see table on following page). Following adoption of the Plant