In Oct 2018, UPOV discussed the revision of its Explanatory Note of Essentially Derived Varieties (EDVs). Several contributions for text revisions had come in, and many questions were raised. The UPOV Member States differed on some of the main items, and it was agreed to organize a public seminar in Oct. 2019 with several speakers to try and get some more clarification on this complex topic. European Seed wanted to learn more about the various viewpoints on EDVs, so we sat down with Jeff Haynes, Acting Commissioner of the U.S. Plant Variety Protection Office (PVPO), to get his take on the matter.
Haynes shares that when talking about Essentially Derived Varieties, the US Plant Variety Protection (PVP) Act allows for the protection of an Essentially Derived Variety (EDV) if the variety is new, distinct, uniform, and stable compared to any other known public or protected varieties. “It is important to note that this can be contested by the owner of the parent variety, if different than the owner of the new variety, for infringement. The US PVPO does not have authority to decide if a variety is a an EDV. We noticed that a statement indicating this notion was deleted from the previous version of the Explanatory Note, and we would be interested in additional discussions regarding this statement and whether it is possible to have the statement, or a similar statement, added back to the Explanatory Note on EDV,” he adds.
“In addition, we desire additional clarification for a recent confusion with EDV characteristics,” says Haynes. “There appears to be an idea concerning a distinction between essential and non-essential characteristics or important and non-important characteristics. We would like to know if UPOV make such distinctions. Based on section (b)6 (i)‐(vi) of the Explanatory Notes, we do not see such a distinction,” he underlines.
Editor’s Note: Jeff Haynes if from the USDA USPVPO.
