All You Need to Know About the Plant Breeder's Rights Act

In a day and age where companies spend millions of dollars in protecting their assets, plant breeders too have the facility of seeking legal protection for their newer varieties of plants. The Plant Breeder’s Rights Act is a legal statute that enables plant breeders to get exclusive rights to propagate material of a new plant variety. Plant Breeder's Rights is a form of intellectual property rights. Here is a brief outline of important aspects of the Plant Breeder’s Rights Act.

Defining Certain Key Terms

Variety: The Federal website describes variety as a group of plants within a single species or sub-species that

• can be distinguished from other plant groups of that same species by at least one characteristic,
• can be reproduced unchanged into the next generation.
• is homogeneous in that all plants in the group look the same.

As an example, there are many different varieties of apples including Granny Smith, McIntosh and Red Delicious. Although they are all the same species, each variety can be distinguished from the others by the fruit shape, size or color and other similar types of characteristics.

Propagating material: Propagating material is the part of the plant that is used to reproduce the variety. For example, many field crops such as corn and wheat, and vegetables such as beans and cucumbers, are grown from seed. Consequently, the propagating material for these crops is the seed.

Other plants are reproduced vegetatively from plant cuttings or budwood. This includes many ornamental plants, such as roses and spirea, and most fruit, such as apples and strawberries. Even though these types of plants commonly produce seeds, it is the cuttings that are considered to be the propagating material.

Plant breeding: Plant breeding has existed for thousands of years. It is the science of working with the genetics of plants to produce new plants with desired characteristics. Today's breeders can be gardeners, farmers, or professionals who work for government research centres, universities, private companies or industry associations.

The techniques of plant breeding range from simply selecting certain plants for multiplication, to deliberate crossing of individual plants to develop new varieties with a combination of desired characteristics. Modern technology has expanded the scope of plant breeding to also include complex molecular techniques.

Benefits of Plant Breeder’s Rights for Canadians

The right protects the plant breeder’s new variety of seeds. It enables them to collect royalties each time they sell the propagating material of the protected plant variety.

The aim of the Plant Breeder's Act is to encourage investment in plant breeding programs which result in development and promotion of new, innovative, and improved plant varieties. A strong plant breeding program has the potential to increase yields in crop varieties and improve quality in new varieties. This can lead to higher value products of increased marketability, improve nutritional content in new varieties leading to human health benefits, and provide a wider selection of plant varieties for landscaping, cut flowers, and potted flowers.