Chinese Version of International Application Platform for Plant Variety Rights Launched

 

On 15 November 2017, the Chinese version of PRISMA (Plant variety data Routing Information System using Multilingual Application forms) developed by International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) in early 2017 was launched. PRISMA enables China's domestic breeders to file data for plant variety rights (PVR) applications in prescribed format with plant variety protection offices of participating UPOV members and foreign breeders to do so with the Chinese plant variety protection office. 

 

China participated in Version 1.1 of PRISMA in July 2017, joining the other 15 member states comprising Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, Kenya, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Republic of Moldova, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, the US, and Uruguay. PRISMA Version 1.1 affords filing for protection of five crops, namely, soya bean, lettuce, apple fruit varieties, rose, and potato, among which lettuce and rose are available for application in China via the system.

 

In the realm of protection for plant varieties, China promulgated in 1997 the Regulation on Protection of New Varieties of Plants, and acceded to UPOV in 23 April 1999. Also, Ministry of Agriculture of China has entered into Strategic Cooperation Agreement on Sino-EU New Plant Variety Protection with the European Union for exchanges and cooperation on a three-year basis in such areas as development of new plant variety protection systems, acceptance and examination process for PVR application, research on variety testing technology, and new plant strain exhibition.