By KYIV. Nov 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Verkhovna Rada has updated legislation in regulation of relations when obtaining rights to plant varieties, the use of new plant varieties and their commercialization, which will bring the relevant legislation of Ukraine closer to EU one.
Relevant bill No. 3680-D on amendments to the laws of Ukraine regarding the protection of rights to plant varieties and seeds and planting material was supported by 273 MPs at a parliamentary meeting on Wednesday (with the required 226 votes), member of the Holos faction Yaroslav Zhelezniak said on the Telegram channel.
According to the explanatory note to the document, its adoption will significantly reduce the number of expert and registration actions/procedures and cancel most of the purely bureaucratic current documents.
Thus, the complex and time-consuming procedure of formal examination of plant varieties, the procedure for the emergence of rights to plant varieties, are subject to cancellation. It is also planned to abolish the status of the intellectual property right to distribute a plant variety and replace it with the right to distribute a variety. In addition, the requirements for state registration of parental components of vegetable crops are abolished.
The draft law establishes clear deadlines for variety examination procedures: up to 20 days – for consideration of an application for a variety (includes consideration of application materials, establishment of variety novelty, variety priority and variety name examination); up to 30 days – for state registration of intellectual property rights for plant varieties with registration of security documents (patents and certificates) and entering information about the variety into state registers.
In addition, the terminology used in legislation on the protection of rights to plant varieties is being clarified and significantly supplemented, taking into account the requirements of EU directives and international rules on the protection of rights to plant varieties.
According to the explanatory note, bill No. 3680-D improves and simplifies the procedure for state registration of parental components of hybrid varieties, as well as improves the requirements and responsibilities of industry expert institutions and clarifies their powers.
"A new institution for the examination process has been introduced – a variety expert (an official of an expert institution directly carrying out expert actions on a variety). Thus, an international practice is being introduced in which one person (variety expert) is responsible for passing all stages of variety examinations – from the beginning of consideration of the application to the state registration of rights to the variety – and is personally responsible for compliance with the law requirements," the explanatory note indicated.
