Community Plant Variety Office

Community Plant Variety Office
Formation 1994 (established)
Location
Director
 Martin Ekvad
Website cpvo.europa.eu

The Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) is an agency of the European Union, located in Angers, France. It was established in 1994. Its task is to administer a system of plant variety rights, also known as plant breeders' rights, a form of intellectual property right relating to plants.

Community Plant Variety Right

The CPVO works rather like the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market: it grants intellectual property protection for new plant varieties fullfilling the following requirements: Community plant variety rights shall be granted for varieties that are:[1]

The right has validity in the European Union in a similar manner that OHIM registers Community Trademarks and the Community Design. Beside the Community Plant Variety Right, some individual EU countries administer its own plant variety right system. However, it is not possible to obtain a Community Plant Variety Right for a plant variety that is subject to a national Plant Variety Right. Plant Variety rights are valid for a period of either 25 or (in the case of varieties of vine and tree species) 30 years.[1]

Legal basis

Council Regulation 2100/94 provides the legal basis for both the Office and the Community Plant Variety Right.[1] Since 27 April 1995 the Office is fully operational and accepting registration requests for Plant Varieties.

Since the accession of the European Union (then: European Community) to the (1991 Act of the) International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants in 2005, the date a Community Plant Variety Right is requested can be used as the priority date for requesting Plant Variety Rights in other convention parties, and vice versa the date of the request for a Plant Variety Right in a Convention Party, can be used as the date of a Community Right, provided the requests are made within 1 year of the original application.[2]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Council Regulation (EC) No 2100/94 on Community plant variety rights". European Union. 27 July 1994. Retrieved 5 July 2015.
  2. ↑ "INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF NEW VARIETIES OF PLANTS". UPOV. 19 March 1991. Retrieved 5 July 2015.

External links


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