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Intellectual property emphasized at 45th session of UPOV Technical Working Party for Vegetables


Alexandria, Virginia, USA
August 12, 2011

Source: Newsletter of the American Seed Trade Association

The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) held the 45th session of its Technical Working Party for Vegetables July 25-29 in Monterey, Calif.
The session included a preparatory workshop July 24, which gave a general overview of UPOV, including its structure, the process and how things get done. The American Seed Trade Association sponsored a reception one evening and facilitated field tours to American Takii, Nunhems USA, Inc., and one of U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service stations.

One of the session's focuses was intellectual property protection - an appropriate topic based on their location.

Jerry Vosti, an account manager for Nunhems USA, Inc. who has been working in the lettuce and spinach industry for more than 35 years, says it's especially important because it is so difficult to protect your genetics in the lettuce seed industry.

"There is an enormous amount of competition out here and the fact that lettuce is open-pollinated makes intellectual property protection and enforcement a critical business component," Vosti says. "Anything that can be done to strengthen PVP laws and help companies' ability to protect their investments is a good thing."

Vosti led the tour at Nunhems and was charged with introducing the 25 UPOV attendees from around the world to the Salinas Valley.

"The ability to protect varieties is our livelihoods here," Vosti says. "A tremendous amount of money is spent in research and development, but in order to survive we must have working mechanisms in place to protect our genetics in order for us to recoup that investment. This allows us to continue to do new research and produce new and novel genetics that will benefit both the grower and consumer."

Rick Falconer who led the tour at American Takii says that new varieties of lettuce are being introduced and pushing older ones out of the market at such an increasing rate that the lifecycle of a varieties put on the market today are sometime half what they used to be.

"Varieties released in the market need a longer life to help us recover research and development costs for that particular variety," Falconer says. "Because there is such a short life for lettuce varieties, it's critical that we have timely responses and approvals when applying for PVP certificates. I think this tour helped demonstrate the importance of that."

ASTA believes that intellectual property is one of the most valuable assets of the seed industry.

Participating in and having representatives at the UPOV meeting allows the industry to provide input on different subjects under consideration and technical details being discussed by the group, explains John Schoenecker of Harris Moran Seed Company who was an International Seed Federation representative at the UPOV session.

UPOV, an intergovernmental organization with headquarters in Geneva, is designed to provide and promote an effective system of plant variety protection, with the aim of encouraging the development of new varieties of plants, for the benefit of society.
 



More news from:
    . ASTA - American Seed Trade Association
    . UPOV (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants)


Website: http://www.amseed.org

Published: August 12, 2011

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