The Plant Breeders’ Rights (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 (updated)

As a form of intellectual property protection, plant breeders’ rights allow businesses to control seed and other propagating material of new varieties, allowing them to recoup the long term investment in their development. This instrument amends existing UK plant variety rights legislation to address deficiencies resulting from the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

It revokes the principal EU Regulation (Council Regulation 2100/94) and implementing EU legislation and where appropriate amends domestic legislation to save EU provisions.

This instrument gives effect to Community plant variety rights (CPVR), intellectual property rights for new varieties of plants in the EU, in the United Kingdom provided that they were granted up to two months before exit day (and provides for unresolved CPVR applications at exit).

It also provides a framework of protection in part through the application of the Plant Varieties Act 1997 (the Act).