The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 (hereinafter referred to as “the PPV Act”) is a sui generis system for the protection of plant varieties, in compliance with Article 27(3)(b) of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement, 1994. For the implementation of the Act, the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority (hereinafter “the Authority”) was established. In a recent Delhi High Court judgment dated November 30, 2023, the Court examined the issue of whether DUS Testing must be conducted before the advertisement of plant variety application under Section 21 of the Act. Before going into details of the matter, a summary of the relevant provisions of the PPV Act is provided below.
Author – Manisha Singh & Vijaya Choudhary