BREEDER’S RIGHT ACT
No 58 of 19 May 2000
Date of entry into force 26 May 2000. Amended by Act No 72/2003
(Date of entry into force 10 April 2003).
Chapter I
General Provisions
Article 1
A person who has bred, or discovered and developed a new variety (a variant or a strain of a plant species) or another person who has acquired the person’s right, a breeder, can, in accordance with the present Act, acquire exclusive right to exploit it for professional reasons. A right concerning a variety (breeder’s right) is granted on the basis of an application filed with the Breeder’s Right Committee, cf. Article 22.
The Minister of Agriculture is responsible for the implementation of the present Act.
This Act covers varieties of all genera and species of plants, including hybrids of genera and species.
In this Act the term “variety” refers to a plant grouping of the same species or sub-species pursuant to the most precise known botanical taxonomy, which, regardless of whether all the conditions for protection under the law are met, can be: Plant groupings may consist of entire plants or parts of plants if the parts can be used to breed whole plants; both are referred to herein as variety constituents.
The expression of characteristics pursuant to a) may be either invariant or variable among similar variety constituents of the same kind, provided that the level of variation is determined also by genotype or combination of genotypes.
Article 2
A breeder’s right may be granted if a variety is: The existence of a variety shall be deemed to be a matter of common knowledge provided it has been sold or offered for sale to the public, entered in an official register of varieties, or it is a matter of common knowledge by other means. Where a variety has been characterized in an application for a breeder's right, a patent application, or an application for its entry into an official register of varieties in this country or in another state, its existence shall be deemed a matter of common knowledge from the time of the filing of the application onward. This will only apply given the aforementioned applications have lead to approval.
Chapter II
Application
Article 3
An application for the entry of a variety into an official register of varieties shall be filed in writing with the Breeder’s Right Committee.
An application for a variety shall comprise a characterization of the variety and specify in particular what distinguishes it from other varieties. It shall also include a suggested denomination for the variety together with the name and address of its innovator. The applicant’s name, identification number and address shall also be indicated.
Where the applicant and the innovator are not the same person the applicant shall verify his or her authority to apply for a breeder’s right.
Where the applicant neither resides nor is established in this country or in any State Party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area [or the Agreement Establishing the European Free Trade Association]1 he shall have an agent residing, or who is established, in this country.
The Breeder’s Right Committee may instruct the applicant to provide, within a prescribed period, any information required to process his or her application. The Breeder’s Right Committee may also instruct the applicant to provide, within a prescribed period, documents and material for examination, cf. Article 9.
The applicant shall pay an application fee of ISK 30 000.
1Article 34 of Act No 72/2003.
Article 4
On receipt of a valid application it shall be entered into the Breeder’s Right Committee’s Diary without delay and a copy of the application, together with an inscription containing the date of entry into the Diary, shall be forwarded to the applicant.
The Diary shall be open to the public with the exception of information on lines forming a hybrids variety and their characterization, provided the applicant has insisted that such information will be kept secret.
Article 5
If, within a prescribed period of time, the applicant does not provide information, or documents and material requested be the Breeder’s Right Committee in accordance with the fifth paragraph of Article 3, the Committee may delete the application from the Diary.
Article 6
From the date of application onward the applicant has the right of protection of a variety preceding that of others who subsequently apply for protection of the same variety.
On request submitted by the applicant the Breeder’s Right Committee can deem the application to have been received concurrently with the first application for breeder’s right in any Member State of The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), provided the first application was filed during the last twelve months before the date of application in this country. The period is calculated from the filing date of the first application and the application date is not counted as part of this period. Such request shall be included in the application and evidence produced of the receipt of the first application within three months from the date of application in this country. The breeder is allowed a period of two years after the expiry of the priority period, or the same time from the rejection or withdrawal of an application, to furnish to the Breeder’s Rights Committee any information, documents or material required for the purposes of examination of the application, as provided in Chapter III.
Article 7
As soon as possible, after the entry of an application into the Breeder’s Right Committee’s Diary, the Committee shall conduct a preliminary examination to determine if a variety fulfils the conditions of protection.
If the Committee is of the opinion, on having concluded the examination, that the conditions have been fulfilled it shall publish a notification in the National Gazette, including an appeal to possible interested parties to object against the registration of the variety within a prescribed period.
On the other hand, if the Committee is of the opinion that conditions have not been fulfilled the applicant shall be given time to submit observations. The application shall be notified in the National Gazette, provided the applicant’s observations have changed a conclusion drawn earlier.
Article 8
If, on the basis of observations submitted, the Breeder’s Right Committee decides to delete an application from its Diary and cancel the examination, a notification shall be published to that effect in the National Gazette.
The Breeder’s Right Committee will not rule on questions concerning the applicants right to a variety. The Committee shall call the parties attention to the fact that matters of dispute may be presented to a Court of Law. Where the Committee is notified of a court action the application shall be inscribed accordingly.
Chapter III
Examination and Registration
Article 9
The Breeder’s Right Committee shall, before a variety can be protected and subject to Article 21, determine whether the variety is in compliance with the conditions for protection, cf. Article 2, by way of a special examination if necessary, and whether it has the distinctive characteristics specified in the application.
The applicant may be required to make a payment to the Committee owing to its examinations expenses, cf. the first paragraph of this Article. Such a payment shall in no case exceed ISK 30 000.
Article 10
Where a variety is deemed to be in compliance with the conditions for protection, the Breeder’s Right Committee shall register it in the official register of varieties under an approved variety denomination, cf. Article 11.
The Breeder’s Right Committee can reject an application for registration of a variety if the applicant does not answer, within a prescribed period, the Committee’s plea to propose a denomination of the variety or propose a new denomination for it, if the Committee holds the belief that the proposed denomination does not meet the conditions imposed.
Where an action has been brought before a court of law, cf. the second paragraph of Article 8, a note to that effect shall be entered into the official register of varieties.
Article 11
An approved denomination shall be applied to designate a variety, which shall be maintained even when the variety is no longer protected.
The denomination may not consist solely of figures except where this is an established practice for designating varieties of the species in question. It must not be liable to mislead or to cause confusion concerning the characteristics, value or identity of the variety, or the identity of the breeder. It must be different from every denomination, which already designates an existing variety of the same plant species or of a closely related species.
An additional denomination may be used in relation to the variety denomination.
The Breeder’s Right Committee may, in special cases and at the breeder’s request, authorize a different denomination for a variety from that which was originally approved.
The Minister of Agriculture may establish more express rules on variety denominations.
Article 12
On having registered a variety the Breeder’s Right Committee will issue a breeder’s right document and deliver it to the applicant against the payment of a registration fee of ISK 3 000. This document is valid for one year and is renewable one year at a time for up to 25 years.
Protection in accordance with a breeder’s right document is renewed by way of a payment of the annual fee to the Breeder’s Right Committee. The annual fee is due on the date of issue of the breeder’s right document. The annual fee for each year from the first year of payment until the 10th year of payment is ISK 3 000. The fee for each year from the 11th year until the 25th year is ISK 6 000. The fee for each year from the 26th year until the 30th year is ISK 9 000.
Notwithstanding the first paragraph of this Article the Minister of Agriculture may provide for a longer period of validity with respect to a breeder’s right document concerning specified species and genera, thus allowing a variety to be protected for up to 30 years.
A registration notice shall publish in the National Gazette.
Article 13
Subsequent to registration the Breeder’s Right Committee may check the breeder’s compliance with the requirement to preserve the variety in a satisfactory manner. For this purpose, and within the period prescribed by the Committee, the breeder shall provide the Committee with necessary material for propagation of the variety in question.
Article 14
Article 1a