The Council of Agriculture (COA) said on June 30 that Taiwan has highly advanced farm crop breeding and cultivating techniques and it signed the agreement on intellectual property right protection with China to prevent the outflow of these varieties providing legal protection to variety breeders. From now on both sides can negotiate for the recognition of crop variety and priority rights as well as crop species (such as pineapple) qualified for plant variety right applications, safeguarding the breeders’ plant variety rights so as to enhance the competitiveness of Taiwan agricultural products in the international market.

The principle of territoriality is applied to plant variety rights and the breeder must apply to his/her country for the right, noted the COA. Over the past few years the Council has reached agreement with the 27-nation European Union, the United States, Japan and Australia on accepting variety right applications filed by citizens or corporate organizations of the other side. But the plant varieties protected in Taiwan following public announcements cannot get legal protection in China due to the long-term special political relationship between two sides of the Taiwan Straits. As cross-strait economic and trade cooperation and exchange of agricultural products have become increasingly frequent, both sides would not be able to prevent variety right infringements through negotiations if the issue on plant variety right protection were not solved.

Among the 62 member countries of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), half of them have formulated laws and regulations to protect their domestic plants according to the 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention, while the other half (including China) have adopted the 1978 Act of the UPOV Convention. The two acts have different regulations on farmer protection, with the 1991 Act offering more protection to plant variety right owners and allowing famers to keep only seeds of proclaimed plant varieties for their own use (otherwise they will be accused of infringing plant variety right). In order to protect Taiwan breeders’ rights and interests, the COA will recommend through cross-strait variety right working group meetings that China should revise related regulations according to the new edition of the UPOV Convention.

Since domestic horticultural crops have the advantage of competing in the field of breeding, the Council said it will make recommendations during future consultations that China should first accept plant variety right applications for pineapple, Indian jujube, Carica papaya, guava, mango and Oncidium, so as to encourage enterprises and individuals to engage in plant breeding research and introduce quality new varieties from abroad. ( 2010-06-30)