The Euroseeds Board of Directors on 04.06.2024 unanimously adopted the association’s new “View on Intellectual Property”.
This new position paper is intended to comprehensively contribute to the upcoming review of the EU Plant Variety Rights legislation and the preparation of the Commission study on patentability of biotechnological inventions with specific focus on patents for NGT plants.
In the development process of the paper, the broad range of views of the Euroseeds membership on how a balanced and innovation-enabling IP system for plant breeding can be best achieved have been taken into account. While many principles and concrete demands are shared by all or a very broad majority of Euroseeds members, there are also some fundamental differences of views, specifically regarding the sufficiency of or preference for a single system of plant variety rights vs. a combination with biotech patents, and regarding the support for or rejection of a limitation of patentability or patent effects.
The new Euroseeds view on IP provides transparency about the background of these different views which are rooted in the broad range of companies and their diversity in size, focus, and differentiated business models.
The paper concludes with a set of concrete objectives and demands in relation to IP protection and management on which the European plant breeding sector is united.
