Seed Law draft revision looks to boost protections for new plant varieties

A draft amendment to the Seed Law was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, for first review on Tuesday, aiming to improve protections for new plant varieties and encourage breeding innovation.

Liu Zhenwei, deputy director of the NPC's Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee, said while introducing the draft that it has extended the scope of the protections of new plant variety rights compared with the Seed Law that was last revised in 2015.

The protections, ranging from the authorized varieties' propagation material to harvested material, will cover production, processing, market permission, sales, import and export, and storage, he said.

To encourage breeding innovation and resolve the homogenization of seed varieties, the revised draft establishes a system of essentially derived varieties that are distinct from, but retain the basic characteristics of, the original varieties.

The draft clarifies that though authorization and new plant variety rights can be sought for EDVs, the owners of the original varieties should agree with the commercial use of the EDVs, Liu said.

The list of EDVs and evaluation guidance will be determined by the State Council's departments of agriculture and rural affairs, and of forestry and grasslands.

The draft amendments also increase the amount of punitive damages. The upper limit of the amount of compensation will be set at five times of the infringers' benefit. If it is difficult to determine the amount, the compensation limit will be increased from 3 million yuan ($460,000) to 5 million yuan, according to the draft.

In general, a draft will become a law after being read three times.