Geneva, Switzerland
April 6, 2017
The Council of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) held its thirty-fourth extraordinary session on April 6, 2017.
Developments included:
Socio-economic benefits of UPOV membership in Viet Nam
The Council welcomed the publication of “The socio-economic benefits of UPOV membership in Viet Nam; An ex post assessment on plant breeding and agricultural productivity after 10 years” (Corresponding author: Steffen Noleppa) by HFFA Research GmbH, as follows:
Executive Summary
http://hffa-research.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Executive-Summary-2017-03-HFFA-Research-Paper-socio-economic-benefits-UPOV-Vietnam-ex-post-assessment-plant-breeding-agricultural-productivity.pdf
Complete study
http://hffa-research.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017-03-HFFA-Research-Paper-socio-economic-benefits-UPOV-Vietnam-ex-post-assessment-plant-breeding-agricultural-productivity.pdf
Adoption of documents
The Council adopted the following documents:
Explanatory notes
UPOV/EXN/EDV/2 Explanatory Notes on Essentially Derived Varieties under the 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention (Revision)
UPOV/EXN/PPM/1 Explanatory Notes on Propagating Material under the UPOV Convention
Information documents:
UPOV/INF/6/5 Guidance for the preparation of laws based on the 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention (Revision)
All adopted documents will be published in the UPOV Collection (see http://www.upov.int/upov_collection/en/).
Test Guidelines
The Council welcomed the adoption by the Technical Committee (TC) of 5 new Guidelines for the Conduct of Tests for Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability (Test Guidelines) and 9 revised Test Guidelines and 4 partially revised Test Guidelines. UPOV has now developed 321 Test Guidelines, all of which are freely available on the UPOV website (http://www.upov.int/test_guidelines/en/).
Experience of members of the Union in the Examination of New Plant Varieties
The Council noted that the number of taxa for which members of the Union had indicated their practical experience in the examination of distinctness, uniformity and stability (DUS) had increased from 3,462 in 2016 to 3,561 in 2017 (+2.9%). The list of taxa in 2017 included 3,416 different genera/species. The Council also noted that information on members of the Union with practical experience in DUS examination was freely accessible via the GENIE database (see http://www.upov.int/genie/en/).
Organization of UPOV sessions
The Council decided to organize only one annual session of the Council, Consultative Committee, Administrative and Legal Committee (CAJ) and Technical Committee (TC) from 2018, with the sessions being held during one week at the end of October / beginning of November.
BACKGROUND
UPOV is an intergovernmental organization based in Geneva, with 74 members, covering 93 States. The purpose of UPOV is 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.
The members of UPOV are:
African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI), Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, European Union, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, México, Morocco, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Oman, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, United States of America, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam.
Topics
Species
