1.1 WHAT IS PLANT BREEDER’S RIGHTS

Plant Breeder's Rights are exclusive commercial rights to a registered plant variety. The rights are a form of intellectual property, like patents, designed specifically for new plant varieties.

Plant Breeder’s Rights gives the breeder of a new plant variety the exclusive right to reproduce and sell propagating material of that variety, and to licence others to do the same. It provides the holder of Plant Breeder’s Rights a mechanism that is recognised internationally, to gain commercial benefit from his/her investment in the development of a new plant variety.

Plant Breeder's Rights are therefore a form of patent specifically for breeders of new plant varieties to:

• encourage plant breeding and innovation through the grant of a limited commercial monopoly to breeders of new varieties, and
• give breeders (innovators or inventors) legal protection to stop other people using the variety without the inventor’s agreement.

In Australia PBR is administered under the Plant Breeder's Rights Act 1994 (the PBR Act) which replaces the earlier Plant Variety Rights Act 1987 (PVR Act).

Applications are made through the Plant Breeder's Rights Office which is part of IP Australia .

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