ISF view on intellectual property

This position paper from the International Seed Federation, an industry body, sets out the position of its members on IP protection for plant breeders and other related issues. ISF members are, not surprisingly, unanimously in favour of a strong IP protection.

The federation considers that both ‘sui generis’ and patent style systems are legitimate. However members of ISF in developing countries consider that it would not be appropriate at the moment to develop protection of plant varieties through utility patent in their countries. For this reason ISF recommends that in developing countries the ‘sui generis’ system agreed upon in the TRIP's3 agreement should be an UPOV-like system shaped upon the 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention. For biotechnological inventions, ISF believes the patent system provides an appropriate protection. In the long term ISF seeks an integrated and strong intellectual property protection system that would serve to encourage the improvement of varieties using both conventional and biotechnological genetics.

The paper covers the following issues in detail:

• protection of plant varieties through breeder’s right
• conditions for the granting of breeder’s right
• exceptions to breeder’s right
• essential derivation
• distinctness and essential derivation