Article 4 of the UPOV Convention states that:
National Treatment
(1) [Treatment] Without prejudice to the rights specified in this Convention, nationals of a Contracting Party as well as natural persons resident and legal entities having their registered offices within the territory of a Contracting Party shall, insofar as the grant and protection of breeders' rights are concerned, enjoy within the territory of each other Contracting Party the same treatment as is accorded or may hereafter be accorded by the laws of each such other Contracting Party to its own nationals, provided that the said nationals, natural persons or legal entities comply with the conditions and formalities imposed on the nationals of the said other Contracting Party.
(2) ["Nationals"] For the purposes of the preceding paragraph, "nationals" means, where the Contracting Party is a State, the nationals of that State and, where the Contracting Party is an intergovernmental organization, the nationals of the States which are members of that organization. |
This principle is picked up in Section 29 of the Australian Plant Breeder's Rights Act 1994 which states that if a person has lodged an application for PBR for a particular variety in a member country other than Australia, the date of lodgment of the foreign application can become the effective date for lodgment in Australia, if:
- the applicant asks for it; and
- the Australian application is lodged within 12 months of the earliest application in another member country.
Similar provision is made for recognition of testing outside Australia (Section 4.8.2 of this Guide ).
Go to Section 1.2.2 Trade Related Intellectual Property Agreement
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