Different cultivated plants are improving every year and acquiring new properties that allow for high yields and disease resistance. This effect is achieved thanks to the fruitful work of breeders. Who are they and how do they protect their rights?
Selection concepts
A breeder is a natural person who has improved certain properties of a known plant, animal, microorganism or developed a new variety, breed or species. A selection achievement is the result of such an improvement or breeding process.
Such achievements are considered creative property and are protected by a special patent-legal form of legislation. To obtain the official right to a selection achievement, it must be registered by writing an appropriate application. After that, the result of intellectual property must pass certain tests and receive a title of protection. Only an individual breeder can be recognized as the author of such a work, thanks to intellectu althrough the efforts of which a new variety, breed was obtained or already known ones were improved. The name of the author must be indicated in the patent for a selection achievement. Co-authors can also take part in the work and will be indicated in the document if the result of their activity is recognized as useful. Both an individual and a legal entity can officially obtain a patent.
What can I get intellectual property rights for?
Objects that can be registered as selection achievements are clearly described in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation in Article 1412. According to this resolution, varieties of plants or animal breeds that meet all the requirements for selection achievements can be recognized as intellectual property.
For plants, the requirements are the presence of a culture or part of it, from which a whole variety can be recreated. Also, the plant must belong to a certain group according to several characteristics, have a certain genotype similar to other representatives, or a combination of them. The new species must differ from the already existing representatives of the group by several or only one property.
Breeding achievement is not only about new plant species. You can also register the rights to the breed of the animal. The new representative must also have certain genetic similarities with other members of the group to which he belongs, but at the same time differ from them in one or more ways.
For the State Register of Breeding Achievements to recognize and register a newanimal, you must provide breeding material, an embryo or one individual male or female.
Who registers?
Today, you can register your own achievement and get a patent for it only at the Ministry of Agriculture. The register of breeding achievements itself is a single publication for plants and animals, published in separate volumes. Only valid and protected breeding achievements at the time of publication can get into it.
To encourage citizens to improve and create their own varieties of plants, the state provides their authors with certain benefits. Thus, all profits from the sale and use of the result of the work of breeders are not taxed for two years. For trees, grapes and their rootstocks, this period has been extended to five years. At the same time, all income received from the use of intellectual labor by a state organization remains at its full disposal. Authors, as individuals, receive credit benefits, taxation, and so on.
Registry information
The exclusive right to a selection achievement is protected only when it is recognized and registered in the state register. According to it, each copyright holder must have a patent for the relevant property.
From the state register, you can find out the following data about the object:
- variety name and code;
- priority date;
- date of inclusion in the register;
- date of exclusion from admission (if any);
- namecurrent patentee;
- patent number and date of its registration;
- expiration date of the title of protection and the reason.
Also, the state list of breeding achievements necessarily contains data on authors, former patent holders, licensees and licensees.
Today, the State Register of Breeding Achievements Approved for Use is published in two separate volumes. The first contains only plant varieties, and the second contains animal breeds.
First volume
The number of breeding achievements contained in it is growing every year, but finding the right one is not difficult. All varieties in the list are distributed in alphabetical order by genera and species. Further, all of them are combined into their families and groups by use. Each breeding achievement is a variety that has its own code, name, number of the region of use, date of inclusion in the list, and data of the breeder and copyright holder. Here you can find all the best varieties of barley, wheat, sunflower and other crops. Hybrids of the same plants, which already have their own numbers, are described separately. The registry does not include any genetically modified crops.
Separate labeling
The State Register of Breeding Achievements includes some varieties of plants marked with the letter "v" before the code. Such marking means that these species are protected by patents for the results of selection achievements. To carry out any actions with seeds or seedlings of such varieties, it is necessarypurchase a special license. In the entire first volume of such plants, approximately half of the available list, but in fact only a part of them are in action. A small proportion of registered plants are not approved for use at all.
In the annexes to the main list, you can see the list of plants that were previously included in the main register, but left it for various reasons. This can happen due to late payment for a patent, non-payment for it at all, refusal or cancellation of a document. Plants are also published there, applications for the inclusion of which are only under consideration. The region code indicates the best area for growing a particular crop. If this column contains "", then you can grow a plant in any region of the country.
Marking "gk" in a separate column indicates that the crop belongs to lawn and fodder plants. This is the designation of perennial herbs, most often growing throughout the country.
Averaged data
The register of breeding achievements is updated at the beginning of each year and, on average, a thousand new plant species are added to the old list. Almost all of them come from an appendix describing candidates for inclusion in the main list. Changes in other parameters are not so noticeable. For various reasons, no more than a few hundred are excluded from the list, and the reduction or expansion of use concerns only a few dozen. Only the Federal State Institution has the right to make any changes to the register"State Commission of the Russian Federation for the Testing and Protection of Breeding Achievements ".
Benefits of the list
If the right holder brings the appropriate application to the commission in time, the exploitation of the variety or plant species registered by him will continue in the old order. What does this give the originator? The presence of a variety on the list allows the use of breeding achievements not only for personal purposes. Planting material can be sold, propagated, transported under all conditions. To do this, each variety must be tested, after which the appropriate certificate is issued for the seeds. It indicates recommendations for specific growing regions, varietal affiliation, origin of the material and its quality. You can find out the details of the procedure at the branches of the State Commission located throughout the country.
Second volume
The second part of the Register of Breeding Achievements Approved for Use includes only breeds and species of animals for breeding in the territory of the Russian Federation. Compared to the first volume, the number of positions registered in it is much smaller. In the publication described last year, there were only 861 selection achievements of 48 animal species. This number includes breeds, crosses, lines and types of animals.
All their divisions are also placed in alphabetical order. All breeds registered and bred before the law was issued are automatically marked in the list with the year 1993. Alsothe register contains information about the category of the animal, its name, the number of the application for inclusion, the data of the patent holder and the year of registration.
Marking Features
Livestock raised for meat, milk or other derivatives is necessarily determined by the direction of use. Cattle are usually classified as dairy and meat breeds, rabbits as meat, downy or meat-skinned, and chickens as meat, egg or meat-egg. Some breeds of animals may be decorative (chickens, rabbits, horses, etc.).
In this edition, breeds protected by selection certificates are marked with an ® in the very first column before the application number. Those breeds that are protected by the document, but do not have the right to use, are listed here in a separate list, which can be found in the application. Each breed included in the list must have a detailed description of appearance, breeding history and data of the originator.
Use of breeds
The exclusive right to any use of animals included in the registry is reserved only to patent holders. To obtain the right to work with breeding material for other persons, it is required to issue an appropriate license from the copyright holder.
You can register in the registry a representative of absolutely any zoological species, which confirms the presence of fish, minks, arctic foxes, bees and even foxes in the list.
The list of registered positions is also revised annually, but inas a percentage of the total number of changes are insignificant. Only a few dozen patents are revoked or abandoned. The appendices of the volume contain the data of new candidates for inclusion in the main list and for deletion from it. The Federal State Institution also has the right to make any changes to the list.
Registration of powers for selection achievement
Only the presence of an animal breed in the state list gives the right to its breeding, sale, import into the country and any other use. In order to obtain these powers, it is necessary to draw up the appropriate agreement described in the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation "On Approval of the Rules for State Registration of Agreements on the Disposal of the Exclusive Right to a Breeding Achievement and the Transfer of Such Right without an Agreement." You can also familiarize yourself with the conditions that make it possible to obtain an exclusive right and without compiling such a document.
In addition, the decree clearly indicates that agreements on the pledge of an exclusive right, its transfer to other persons and alienation from it are subject to mandatory federal registration.
Conclusion
So, a selection achievement is not just a new kind of plant or animal, but a registered right to it. To get it, it’s not enough just to cross two different dogs, you also need to prove to the commission that the result of such work is really useful and has certain distinctive features.
With plants it is much easier, therefore the list described in the first volume is very wide and is updated every year. Potential benefits from agricultural animal breeds have long since been almost completely exploited, so new recorded species appear very rarely.
The state register allows you to control the quality of the described plants and guarantee the result when growing them. Registration also helps to control the legality of their use in the country.
