The firm assists its clients operating as breeders in the fields of, for example, food horticulture or floriculture providing advice in connection with the development and exploitation of new plant variety rights. The instrument of plant variety protection is called plant breeder's right (PBR) or also plant variety right (PVR). The plant variety right is a specific form of industrial property right recognised in several countries around the world with the aim of encouraging the development of new varieties through the recognition of commercial exclusivity that allows the breeder to recover investment costs and profit from the commercial exploitation of the protected variety. The expression “plant variety” refers to a group of plants of a single botanical taxon of the lowest known level. For a new plant variety right to be granted, the requirements of novelty, distinctness, uniformity and stability have to be met. The plant variety is considered "new" if, as of the date of filing of the breeder application, the propagating material or vegetative propagation, or a harvest product of the variety, has not been sold or otherwise transferred to third parties, by the breeder or with his consent, for the purpose of exploitation of the variety for more than one year in the national territory or for more than four years in any other foreign Country (period extended to six years in the case of trees and vines). A plant variety satisfies the "distinctness" requirement when it is clearly distinguished from any other variety well known to exist as of the date of filing of the application. The variety is considered “uniform” if it is sufficiently uniform in the expression of distinctive characteristics relevant to protection. Finally, the variety is considered "stable" if the distinctive characteristics relevant for the purposes of protection remain unchanged after successive reproductions or multiplications. The right to a new plant variety has a duration of twenty years (twenty-five for the Community right) starting from the grant date; for some species, such as vines, the right has a duration of thirty years from the date of grant. |