Plant Breeders’ rights
At DIAZ FRANCO IP, we help protect new, distinct, uniform, and stable plant varieties by preparing, filing, and prosecuting plant breeder’s rights applications before the competent authority, helping secure legal protection for innovations developed through plant breeding.
Plant Varieties
What is protected through plant variety protection?
Plant variety protection may be available for new varieties of grapevines, forest trees, fruit trees, agricultural crops, fruits, vegetables, legumes, ornamental and flowering plants, forest species, medicinal, aromatic, and industrial plants, as well as grasses and forage crops, provided they meet the applicable requirements of novelty, distinctness, uniformity, and stability.
Plant variety protection is designed to protect new plant varieties developed through breeding, provided they meet the applicable requirements of novelty, distinctness, uniformity, and stability.
If you have developed a new plant variety and would like to explore the available protection options, we can help you determine the most appropriate strategy for obtaining and managing your plant breeder’s rights.
The value of plant variety protection
Plant variety protection gives the owner the exclusive right to authorize or prevent third parties from producing, reproducing, multiplying, propagating, offering for sale, marketing, importing, exporting, or possessing reproductive or propagating material of the protected variety without consent. These rights help protect investment in research and plant breeding, strengthen the breeder’s competitive position, and maximize the commercial value of the innovation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What you need to know about plant variety protection
Plant variety protection is a form of intellectual property that recognizes and protects new varieties developed through plant breeding, granting breeders exclusive rights over their commercial exploitation.
An effective protection strategy helps safeguard investment in research and development, strengthen competitiveness, and create economic value in the agricultural, forestry, ornamental, and agro-industrial sectors.
This section provides essential information and answers to frequently asked questions about plant variety protection, its requirements, scope, and benefits for those developing plant innovations.
What is the difference between patenting a biotechnology product/process and registering a plant variety?
The difference lies in the subject matter protected and the applicable legal framework.
Biotechnology patents may protect modified proteins, modified DNA sequences, modified biological processes that do not occur in nature, specific protein modifications, genetic modifications, and other qualifying inventions.
A plant breeder’s right, on the other hand, protects the resulting plant variety as a whole biological entity, provided it meets the applicable requirements of novelty, distinctness, uniformity, and stability.
Can I patent a plant or seed that I found in nature?
No. Under industrial property law, including Andean Decision 486, living organisms and biological material as they exist in nature are expressly excluded from patentability.
How long does legal exclusivity last for a protected plant variety?
The term of protection varies depending on the type of crop.
For standard varieties such as vegetables, cereals, and export flowers, the plant breeders’ rights provide 20 years of protection.
For grapevines, forest trees, and fruit trees, the term may extend to 25 years due to their longer biological maturation cycles. Once the term expires, the variety enters the public domain.
What happens if a third party uses my genetic material or protected variety for research?
Industrial and intellectual property laws recognize a “breeder’s exemption.”
This allows a third party to use a protected variety legitimately for research purposes or as an initial source for developing a new genetic line.
However, if the new variety requires repeated use of the protected variety for large-scale commercial production, the third party may be required to obtain authorization and pay the applicable royalties.
Does registration of a plant variety in Colombia protect me in other countries?
Industrial property rights are territorial, so a local registration provides exclusive rights within Colombia.
However, because Colombia is a member of UPOV (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants), a 12-month priority period is generally available from the Colombian filing date to seek protection for the same variety in other UPOV member countries while preserving the priority date.
