Understanding the Breeders’ Rights & Farmers’ Rights Under PPVFR Act

1. NATIONAL SEMINAR
Regulations &
Governance Issues in
Indian Seed Sector
Understanding
the Breeders’,
Researchers &
Farmers’ Rights
under PPVFR Act
Speaker Name
D. S. Raj Ganesh
Legal Advisor
PPVFR Authority
September 26, 2023
ICAR Lecture Hall,
Second Floor, NASC Complex,
Pusa, New Delhi

2. ➢Intellectual Property Right.
➢Plant Breeders Right is a Statutory Right created and governed
by PPV&FR Act, 2001.
➢In this regard Plant Breeders Right is distinguishable from
other IP rights like Trade Marks and Copyright which can be
protected and used unregistered.
PLANT BREEDERS RIGHT

3. BRANCHES OF I.P. LAW
Trade Marks
Copyright
Patents
Design
Semi-Conductor Integrated Circuit Design
Geographical Indication
Plant Variety Protection

4. STATUTORY ORGANS
Plant Varieties Protection Appellate
Tribunal
Protection of Plant Varieties And Farmers
Right Authority
Plant Varieties Registry

5. VARIETIES ELIGIBLE FOR REGISTRATION
➢ NEW VARIETIES:- On the date of filing of application, the variety
a) has not been commercialised or
b) commercialised for a period of less than one year.
➢ EXTANT VARIETIES:-
a) Notified varieties under Section 5 of Seeds Act, 1966
b) Varieties of common knowledge.
c) Farmers Variety.
d) Public Domain varieties.
UPOV ONLY NEW VARIETIES ELIGIBLE FOR REGISTRATION

6. DUS – DISTINCTIVENESS, UNIFORMITY AND
STABILITY
➢New Variety – NDUS –
➢ Novelty
➢Distinctiveness – Distinct from any other variety in single essential
characteristic.
➢Uniformity – Sufficiently uniform in essential characters
➢Stability – Essential characters remain unchanged after repeated
propagation
➢Extant Variety – DUS
➢Essentially Derived Variety - DUS

7. REGISTRATION OF FARMERS VARIETY
➢Genetic Purity and Uniformity test to be conducted by concerned
SAU for Farmers Variety before filing.
➢Report should be forwarded by concerned SAU or CAU or ICAR
Institutes to Authority.
➢Thereafter application will be processed for registration and DUS
testing will be conducted.

8. ➢Single and Distinct.
➢Should not be a Trade Mark.
➢Should not consist solely of figures – may be letters. or combination of letters and
figures.
➢Should not hurt religious sentiments.
➢Should not be a Name or Emblem.
➢Should not be comprised solely of partly of Geographical Name-Registrar may allow
it if it is based on honest use of such denomination.
DENOMINATION

9. BRANCH OFFICES
BRANCH OFFICE JURISDICTION
Ranchi Branch office Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Chattisgarh, Orissa, and
Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
Guwahati Branch Office Assam, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland,
Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh.
Palampur Branch Office Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab,
Uttarakhand and Chandigarh
Pune Branch Office Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Dadra Nagar Haveli
and Daman and Diu.
Shivamogga, Karnataka. Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu,
Lakshadweep and Puducherry”.

10. ➢Application for registration based on principal place of business or
domicile
➢Joint application - Jurisdiction based on name of the person first
mentioned in the application.
➢Agent or licensee of registered breeder has principal of business or
domicile .
➢In case of foreign applicants address – service in India.
➢All communications be sent by special messenger or by RPAD or by
electronic mail (with digital signature).
➢Date of payment of entire fees would be the date of filing
APPLICATION FOR THE REGISTRATION

11. DUS TESTING AND SPECIAL TESTING
DUS TESTING
Field Based
Multi-Location
Based
SPECIAL
TESTING
DUS Testing
Fails
Laboratory
Based

12. AUTHORITY NOTIFIES DUS CENTRES
AND DUS TESTS
Authority empanels DUS Institutions.
Authority notifies in PVJ methods of conducting DUS and
Special Test.
Authority develops and publishes in its Journal guidelines for
DUS test for each crop.
UPOV AUTHORITY MAY CONDUCT TESTS OR TAKE INTO
ACCOUNT RESULTS OF TEST ALREADY CONDUCTED.

13. DUS TEST FEES
➢DUS test fees specified in Second Schedule – maximum
Rs.2,00,000/- per entry – for on-farm maximum Rs.8,00,000/-
➢Special test fees - separate.
➢Details of DUS test fee available in website

14. DUS TESTING – SEASON AND LOCATION
TYPE OF VARIETY SEASON LOCATION
New Variety 2 similar crop seasons 2 Locations
Extant Variety about which
there is common knowledge
1 seasons 2 Locations
Farmers Variety
1 Seasons 2 Locations

15. DUS TESTING – ENV – EXEMPTED
Extant Notified Varieties are
exempted from DUS Testing

16. DUS TESTING – EDV
Decided by Authority on case to case
basis.

17. ON-SITE DUS TESTING
In case of Trees and Vines –An option for on-farm
DUS Testing Panel of three experts shall visit on farm
test sites for two similar crop season as specified.

18. PROVISIONAL PROTECTION
24(5) The Registrar shall have
power to issue such directions to
protect the interests of a breeder
against any abusive act committed
by any third party during the
period between filing of application
for registration and decision taken
by the Authority on such
application.

19. RIGHTS OF BREEDER
To Produce
To Sell.
To Market
To
Distribute.
To
Otherwise
Deal

20. RESEARCHER’S RIGHTS
➢Use of any registered variety by any person for conducting
experiment or research
or
➢Use of a variety by any person as an initial source of variety for
the purpose of creating other varieties.
➢Authorisation of breeder of registered variety is required where
repeated use of such variety as a parent line is necessary
commercial production of such other newly developed variety.

21. DURATION OF REGISTRATION
INITIAL PERIOD OF REGISTRATION
Nine years in
case of Trees
and Vines.
Six years in
case of other
crops.

22. RENEWAL
Trees and Vines
• 18 years from the date of
registration of variety –
Initial period 9 yrs and
extended period 9 yrs
Extant Varieties
• 15 years from date of
Notification of variety by
Central Govt- Initial period
6 yrs and extended period 9
yrs
Other cases
• 15 years- Initial period 6
yrs and extended period 9
yrs

23. The Annual fee per year is as follows:-
➢ NOTIFIED VARIETY under Section 5 of Seeds Act -Rs.2000/-
➢ NEW VARIETIES Rs.2000/-+0.2% of sale value (previous year)+1% of Royalty.
➢ EXTANT VARIETIES (VCK) Rs.2000/-+0.1% of sale value (previous year)+0.5% of Royalty.
➢ FARMERS VARIETY – Rs. 10/-.
➢ Annual fee for full protection period.
➢ Renewal fee payable in one lump sum (5 ½ - 6th year) (field crops) and from (8 ½ - 9th year)
(perennials) of protection period (Individual-Rs. 10,000/-, Educational-Rs. 20,000/- and
Commercial- Rs. 1,00,000/- one lump sum) (nil – for farmers).
ANNUAL FEE

24. FARMERS RIGHTS
➢A farmer bred a New Variety can register his variety.
➢A farmer shall save, use, sow, resow, exchange, share of sell his
farm produce including seed of a protected variety in an unbranded
manner.
➢Registered varieties must be made available at reasonable price and
reasonable quantities within reasonable time
➢Protection from innocent infringement.
➢Farmers are exempted from all fees except Annual Fees

25. Right without Remedy is no Right
RIGHT AND REMEDY

26. ➢Not being a Breeder sells, exports, imports or produces
such variety without permission of Breeder.
➢Uses, sells exports or imports any variety giving such
variety the denomination identical or deceptively similar
to denomination of variety regd. under Act.
INFRINGEMENT

27. IDENTICAL SIMILARITY
DECEPTIVE SIMILARITY
Identical Similarity
• A’s product – cakes and bakes
• B’s product – cakes and bakes.
Deceptive similarity
• A’s product- cakes and
bakes
• A’s product- cakes ‘n’ bakes

28. A denomination shall be deemed to be deceptively similar to another
denomination if the denomination so nearly resembles to that other
denomination as to be likely to deceive or cause confusion.
DECEPTIVE SIMILARITY

29. TESTS FOR DECEPTIVE SIMILARITY
Phoenetic Similarity
(Ex., Glucovita – Gluvita)
Ideas Conveyed By Denomination
(Ex., Water-matic – Aqua-matic)

30. ➢Discovery of documents.
➢Preserving infringing variety or documents or other
evidence.
➢Attachment of property.
RELIEF IN INFRINGEMENT SUITS

31. Option of Breeder
➢Damages
➢Share in Profits
RELIEF IN INFRINGEMENT SUITS

32. ➢ Penalty for applying false denomination. (S.70)
- Imprisonment from three months to two years with penalty from Rs.50,000/- to Rs.5,00,000/-.
➢ Penalty for selling varieties to which false denomination is applied.(S.71)
Imprisonment from six months to two years with penalty from 50,000/- to Rs.5,00,000/-
➢ Penalty for falsely representing a variety as registered.(S. 72)
Imprisonment from six months to three years with penalty from Rs. 1,00,000/- to Rs.5,00,000/-
➢ Penalty for subsequent offence.(S. 73)
Imprisonment from one year to three years with penalty from Rs. 2,00,000/- to Rs.20,00,000/-
PENALTIES

33. Pleading invalidity of
registration – stay of
criminal proceedings – if
rectification proceedings are
filled within 3 months
RIGHT OF ACCUSED

34. ➢Novelty of parental lines depend on novelty of hybrids.
➢If earliest hybrid is novel then its parental lines would also be novel
if they are filed within a year from the date of first sale of earliest
hybrid.
➢Concept of ever greening explained.
WP 4330/2012, WP 4365/2012, WP 4366/2012, WP
6199/2012 and WP 7853/2012 – Delhi High Court -
Parental lines – novelty

35. FL-2027 PEPSI POTATO VARIETY REVOCATION
• Pepsi registered their potato variety FL-2027 used in production of lays chips.
• Dr. Hooper developed the variety assigned it to Frito-lays.
• No assignment deed between Frito-lays to Pepsi India.
• Variety Registration Revoked.
• Judgement upheld by Hon’ble Delhi High Court by order dated 5th July, 2023 in CS
(COMM.IPD.PV) 2/2022.