We are most familiar with the most popular forms of intellectual property, such as trademarks and patents. But there are a large number of intellectual property regimes that protect more sophisticated and/or industrial developments that are not so obvious to the consumer.
This is the case of plant varieties rights that protect plants that have different industrial applications. One might think that it is only used for crops that provide us with food since we understand that a new, more robust class of blueberry or a new, more efficient variety of rice should be protected, but actually, it also applies to ornamental plants. Colombia is the world's second-largest producer of fresh-cut flowers (the Netherlands being the first) and is the main exporter for the United States market.
The Colombian floriculture industry does not appear in the media often (it usually does around its most important date, Valentine's Day), but it is an essential resource for development and employment in our country and the flowers and plants related to this industry are protected by intellectual property through plant breeders’ rights.
This means that in Colombia there is protection of the intellectual property rights of the creators, breeders, and developers of new plant varieties through a sui generis system known as Plant Breeder's Rights which will be granted a Certificate by the Colombian Agricultural Institute - ICA.
Said Breeder's Certificate is granted to the person who has created a plant variety, that is, who has obtained or developed a new variety by applying scientific knowledge to the heritable improvement of varieties, provided that the variety meets the novelty requirements. distinctiveness, homogeneity, and stability, in addition to the varietal denomination.
The requirements are verified via a comprehensive and rigorous technical examination after which the Breeder's Certificate is issued. The right stands for 25 years for trees and vines and 20 years for other species. This means that if a flower grower wants to grow and exploit a protected plant variety, she must have authorization from the breeder. In other words, she has to sign a license agreement which payment is usually called royalty or royalty to be paid by the grower.
Such license to the farmer or grower must be obtained from the Breeder before carrying out any of the acts that require authorization, otherwise, there would be a commission of acts of infringement of the breeder's rights, acts sanctioned by civil and criminal law.
The protection of a plant variety through the Plant Breeder's Rights Regime implies that there has been an effort in research, time, and resources that is compensated through the protection provided by this intellectual property regime. This allows advances in genetics, developing and improving new varieties, and each time varieties with better adaptation and characteristics are obtained and developed with better quality standards that allow expanding the supply of agricultural products and reaching new markets.
The largest number of protected varieties in our country corresponds to flowers (rose, alstroemeria chrysanthemum, and carnation), followed by sugar cane, coffee, rice, and blueberries.
