Plant Breeders’ Rights Act

Marginal note:Eligible plant varieties

• 4 (1) Plant breeder’s rights may not be granted except in respect of a plant variety that belongs to a prescribed category and meets all of the conditions set out in subsection (2).

• Marginal note:Conditions

  (2) Plant breeder’s rights may be granted in respect of a plant variety if it

  • (a) is a new variety;

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

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

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

• Marginal note:New variety

  (3) A plant variety is a new variety if the propagating or harvested material of that variety has not been sold by, or with the concurrence of, the breeder of that variety or the breeder’s legal representative

  • (a) in Canada, before

    • (i) the prescribed period preceding the filing date of the application for the grant of plant breeder’s rights, in the case of a variety belonging to a recently prescribed category, and

    • (ii) the period of one year before the filing date of the application for the grant of plant breeder’s rights, in the case of any other variety; and

  • (b) outside Canada, before

    • (i) the period of six years before the filing date of the application for the grant of plant breeder’s rights, in the case of a tree or vine, and

    • (ii) the period of four years before the filing date of the application for the grant of plant breeder’s rights, in any other case.

• Definition of sufficiently homogeneous variety

  (4) For the purposes of paragraph (2)(d), sufficiently homogeneous variety means a variety for which, in the event of its sexual reproduction or vegetative propagation in substantial quantity, any variations in characteristics of the plants so reproduced or propagated are predictable, capable of being described and commercially acceptable.

• Marginal note:Regulations

  (5) The Governor in Council may make regulations prescribing classes of sales that are not to be considered sales for the purposes of subsection (3).