Intellectual property protection for plants

Abstract

The production of raspberries is an important and highly valuable part of the agroindustry, which provides direct use of fruits and their application in the food processing and confectionery industry. Acceptance of plant intellectual property protection additionally influences the introduction of new development programs in this field and expansion of new products. Two approaches in plant intellectual property protection have been developed on a global level: the American approach that allows patentability for plants and the European approach that includes an exemption in relation to the patentability of plant varieties. In both cases, the protection of new varieties is regulated by a special system of variety protection. This article presents a comparison of those two plant variety protection systems and the comparison between Serbian and US raspberry production and innovation in this field, since these countries are among the five major producers of raspberries and raspberry products in the world; therefore, intellectual property protection of raspberry varieties is an especially important issue to them. The area harvested with raspberries in the United States is over 3000 ha smaller than in Serbia, but the production of this fruit is significantly higher. The continuous development of new varieties, primarily adapted to the growing conditions in US regions, has strongly increased the yield of this fruit.