Plant Breeders’ Rights Act

Marginal note:Varieties to which Act applies

• 4 (1) The varieties of plants in respect of which this Act provides for the granting of plant breeders’ rights are restricted to varieties belonging to prescribed categories and found, pursuant to subsection 27(1), to be new varieties.

• Marginal note:New varieties

  (2) A plant variety is a new variety if it

  • (a) is, by reason of one or more identifiable characteristics, clearly distinguishable from all varieties the existence of which is a matter of common knowledge at the effective date of application for the grant of the plant breeder’s rights respecting that plant variety;

  • (b) is stable in its essential characteristics in that after repeated reproduction or propagation or, where the applicant has defined a particular cycle of reproduction or multiplication, at the end of each cycle, remains true to its description; and

  • (c) is, having regard to the particular features of its sexual reproduction or vegetative propagation, a sufficiently homogeneous variety.

• Marginal note:Definition of “sufficiently homogeneous variety”

  (3) In paragraph (2)(c), sufficiently homogeneous variety means such a variety that, in the event of its sexual reproduction or vegetative propagation in substantial quantity, any variations in characteristics of plants so reproduced or propagated are predictable, capable of being described and commercially acceptable.