Geneva, Switzerland
October 21, 2010

The Council of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) held its annual ordinary session on October 21, 2010.

The Council noted a modest increase – 3 percent - in the overall number of applications (13,019) for plant variety protection in 2009. A record number of titles in force – 86,325 –
was registered in 2009, representing a 6 percent increase on figures for 2008.

In 2009, the number of plant genera and species for which there were agreements between members of the Union for cooperation in the examination of distinctness, uniformity and stability exceeded 1,400 (a 3 percent increase on 2009).

The Council thanked out-going Vice Secretary General, Mr. Rolf Jördens, for his dedicated service over the past ten years. Mr. Jördens will be succeeded by Mr. Peter Button, who is
currently UPOV’s Technical Director, on December 1, 2010.

Round-up of key developments:

Examination of laws
The Council decided that the Draft Law on Plant Variety Protection of the Republic of Tajikistan was in conformity with the provisions of the 1991 Act of the UPOV. Once this draft law is adopted by the Republic of Tajikistan, that country will be in a position to deposit its instrument of accession to the 1991 Act of UPOV.

Observers
Observer status was granted to the Association for Plant Breeding for the Benefit of Society (APBREBES) and to European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) for the Council, the
Administrative and Legal Committee (CAJ), the Technical Committee (TC) and the Technical Working Parties (TWPs). The observer status for CropLife International was extended to the CAJ, TC and TWPs.

NordGen access to UPOV-ROM Plant Variety Database (UPOV-ROM)
It was agreed that NordGen (Nordic Genetic Resource Center) be granted a free subscription to the UPOV-ROM Plant Variety Database (UPOV-ROM) with an explanation that the
background to this sharing of information is provided by the “Reply of UPOV to the Notification of June 26, 2003, from the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD)”, adopted by the Council of UPOV at its thirty-seventh ordinary session on October 23, 2003.

Finances and internal auditing
UPOV’s Financial Regulations and Rules were revised, together with the introduction of provisions for internal auditing

Information and Guidance
The Council also adopted a number of information and guidance documents in relation to:

• (a) conditions and limitations concerning the breeder’s authorization in respect of propagating material; the definition of variety; and a revision of the explanatory note on
• variety denominations;
• (b) guidance documents on the examination of Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability (“DUS”)iv and on DNA-Profiling; and
• (c) information on software that would be made available by members of the Union to all other members of the Union.

A full report of the decisions of the Council at its forty-fourth ordinary session is available at:
http://www.upov.int/en/documents/c/index_c44.htm)

Full press release

Website: http://www.upov.int

Published: October 21, 2010