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On March 20, 1997, the State Council promulgated officially
the ‘Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of New
Varieties of Plants’. The Regulations of plant varieties protection
( PVP) conforms to the 1978 Act of the UPOV
convention in principal. Thereafter China deposited its instrument
officially for accession to the UPOV and became its 39th member
state on the April 23, 1999.
There are two examining and approving authorities for plant
variety rights in China,
of which one is the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and the other, the State
Forestry Administration (SFA). MOA and SFA are responsible for examining
and granting new variety rights of agricultural plants and forest plants
respectively according to the job responsibility.
The government has issued and
implemented six lists of protected new varieties of agricultural plants and
four lists of protected new varieties of forest plants, which cover 140
genera and species, including 62 agricultural plants and 78 forest plants.
The numbers are far higher than the minimum numbers required by the
"International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of
Plants."
By the end of 2007, MOA had handled
4, 695 applications for plant variety rights. The number of applications
handled in 1999 was 115, and by 2007 it reached 816. Among all the applications, there were
4,244 for field crops, 187 for vegetables, 120 for fruit trees and 144 for
decorative plants. It included 184 from foreign enterprises and individuals.
After examination, 1,417 applications were granted the variety rights.
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About PVP in China
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