DG Health and Consumers, European Commission (2010-2011)
In March 2010, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Health and Consumer Policy (DG SANCO) asked GHK, working with the support of ADAS, to evaluate the Community Plant Variety Rights (CPVR) system. The final report of our study has now been published.
The evaluation has concluded that the CPVR system functions well overall, that stakeholders are happy with it and that they wish to retain the system in its current form, albeit with some carefully targeted adjustments. In particular, the CPVR system provides an exemption to growers, providing for payment of reduced fees for use of farm saved seed. Implementation of the ‘agriculture exemption’ has been problematic and stakeholders are widely dissatisfied with it. The operation of this exemption could be improved and more effective royalty collection systems for farm saved seed established across the EU. Additionally, patents are increasingly granted for biological materials, and in some cases, plant variety rights and patents overlap. This is an issue of significant concern to plant breeders as overlapping rights may create restrictions in the use of varieties protected by the CPVR system.
Plant variety rights are a form of intellectual property protection that has been developed to increase innovation in the plant breeding sector while recognising certain features of agricultural production that differ from other types of intellectual property. In Europe, national plant variety rights systems have operated in some member states since the 1960s and today there are 23 such systems in the EU.
The CPVR regime was created in 1994 and operates alongside these national systems, offering a single application process and protection that covers all 27 member states. Since that time, the number of plant variety applications and rights granted has steadily increased at EU level, and has been decreasing in many member states. In 2010, more than 2,300 plant variety rights were granted through the CPVR system and more than 28,000 rights currently cover a range of plant varieties across the ornamental, agricultural, vegetable and fruit sectors.
The evaluation assessed how well the CPVR regime has met its original objectives, set out more than 15 years ago. The evaluation also assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the current system and recommended options to address identified deficiencies. The study involved a pan-European stakeholder consultation with industry, government and non-profit organisations. We consulted with breeders, farmers, processors and traders to cover the spectrum of industry views. In-depth interviews were combined with a large-scale survey to provide a contextualised and comprehensive assessment of the CPVR system’s operation to date and to identify challenges it might face in the future.
The evaluation report can be downloaded from DG SANCO’s website.