The Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA) provides patent-like rights to plant variety breeders and developers through its voluntary Plant Variety Protection (PVP) program.
Its primary purpose is to allow plant breeders to protect their varieties, and ensure they’ll benefit from their development and recover their research costs. Without the PVP, the only protection breeders had was the biological protection of hybrids. The act was passed to encourage the development of new non-hybrid varieties.
The PVPA was originally signed into law on Dec. 24, 1970, and later amended on April 4, 1995 to add protection to potatoes and other tubers.
Varieties protected under the PVP can only be sold or advertised for seeding purposes by the protection certificate’s owner or with the owner’s permission. The certificate owner may bring civil action against persons infringing on his or her rights, and may ask a court to issue an injunction to prevent others from violating proprietary rights.
Damages awarded by a court must at least compensate the certificate owner for the infringement. Awards may include attorney fees and up to triple damages if willful infringement is found. The term of the protection expires 18 years after the certificate was issued for varieties filed before April 4, 1994, and 20 years after the certificate was issued for varieties covered under the amended act.
Passing the amended PVPA allowed the United States to be a signatory in the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). This ensures proprietary rights on varieties are respected in many countries worldwide.
The developer of a variety has two options for plant variety protection under PVP.