Legal protection of new plant varieties in the Republic of Serbia

Abstract

The protection of new plant varieties as a form of intellectual property is generally accepted. It is a sui generis legal protection which, in the framework of industrial property rights, creates new, distinctive, stable and homogeneous plant varieties, marked with a variety label, but there is also a tendency of patent protection in the world. The basic features of this legal protection are exclusivity and autonomy in relation to the legal regime established for the placing of planting material in commercial traffic. The aim of this paper is to examine the legal implications and to answer certain issues concerning the protection of intellectual property in this area. The historical-legal and normative-legal method for the consideration of the historical development of the legal protection of plant breeders and the analysis of positive law in this area in the Republic of Serbia were used in the framework of the harmonization of rights with international law and the law of the European Union.