We offer a service that provides protection for a narrow area of expertise, focusing on different characteristics within a biological species. For the protection of new plant varieties – which are expressly excluded from the general patentable subject matter – a breeder has an ad hoc tool: the "Community plant variety right". This particular type of protection is highly specialized and available to varieties of any plant species, including hybrids.
The most widespread procedure for obtaining protection in Europe is the Community plant variety right (CPVR), which allows homogeneous protection – analogous that that of a patent – to be obtained throughout the EU. National procedures are also available, which proves protection limited to the territory in it is filed.
Having provided technical assistance in some of the most famous cases on plant varieties rights in Italy and in the European countries where we have offices, Jacobacci & Partners can not only assist clients in obtaining CPVRs or national rights, but also advise on the most appropriate protection for such rights in each specific case.
The protection of new plant varieties has advantages that benefit society as a whole on multiple levels. On one hand, the person who created or discovered and fine-tuned the variety (or, in the event that it was carried out as part of an employment contract or autonomously, to the employer or the client). Meanwhile, the various morphological and physiological differences of individual plants, the characteristics of which must be transmissible to the successive generations, can be categorized and tracked.
It is worth noting that, in agriculture, these advances not only generate GDP for the country or territory involved, but the development of new plant varieties is also an essential tool in the fight against climate change: this type of research seeks to guarantee the availability of future food supplies and to promote social stability.
Not protecting plant varieties, and thus not incentivizing investment in developing new varieties, may result in less innovation in this area, causing not only confusion in the complex world of agriculture but also to a decrease in the information available on the subject and untold economic and societal loss.
