The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and the State Forestry Administration (SFA) worked together in 2005 to enhance the country's competitiveness in agricultural and forestry science and technology. They also worked to promote research and development related to independently owned new plant varieties. The protection of new varieties was significantly strengthened last year.
MOA received 950 applications for rights to new plant varieties in 2005, increasing 29.3 per cent from 2004. And 195 new agricultural plant variety rights were granted last year, an increase of 40 per cent year-on-year. There were 77 applications from foreign enterprises and individuals last year, double the total number of applications throughout the past five years combined.
By the end of 2005, MOA had received nearly 3,000 applications, covering 37 varieties and species. About 700 of these applications have been granted new agricultural plant variety rights. Domestic applicants hailed from virtually every municipality, province and autonomous region on the Chinese mainland, except for the Tibet Autonomous Region. Foreign applicants came from the Netherlands, the United States, South Korea, Japan, Israel, New Zealand and Australia.
In 2005, SFA accepted 72 domestic and overseas applications for new forestry plant variety rights, double the number in 2004; it granted 41 of them. The overall number of new forestry plant variety rights had reached 113 by the end of last year.
On May 20, 2005, MOA issued the sixth series of nationally protected agricultural plants, including 21 new varieties and species. There are currently 62 species of new agricultural plant varieties under protection.
MOA established the National Technological Commission of the Standardization of New Plant Varieties Test in January 2005, to further enhance the standardized management of new agricultural plant variety tests. In order to guarantee fair examination and approval procedures for new plant variety applications, the Second Re-examination Commission of New Agricultural Plant Varieties was set up. This includes members from a range of fields, such as administrators, jurists and technicians. Conferences were also held in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Jinan and Gongzhuling. These were all related to new agricultural plant variety tests, communication, and test technology training.
MOA launched a new agricultural plant protection website at http://www.cnpvp.cn last July, in order to provide the public with information about new agricultural plant protection and improve the transparency of administrative information.
SFA also achieved remarkable progress in the establishment and promotion of new forestry plant variety test systems. On the basis of one test centre, five sub-centres, two molecular test laboratories and three special test bases that have been established over the past several years, SFA integrated a range of resources to establish test guidelines for 16 species. It also set up a database of known plant categories.
Last September, the Office of New Plant Varieties Protection of SFA, together with other related departments, jointly held the International Forum on China's Flower and Plant Industry Development & IP Protection in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province. The forum attracted more than 100 deputies from large domestic flower & plant enterprises, flower & plant societies and administrative departments. A number of foreign guests from the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, France, New Zealand and Israel also attended.
In 2005, the new forestry plant variety protection website, (http://www.cnpvp.net), was given a thorough facelift. The revisions provide real-time information, through which users can quickly examine the status of all new forestry plant variety rights applications. A new programme of online exhibitions of granted categories was also added to the website.
In 2005, courts at all levels throughout the country accepted 16,583 IP-related civil cases, a 21 per cent increase year-on-year. About 16,453 cases have been concluded, 30 per cent higher than in 2004.
Approximately 6,096 were copyright cases, 2,947 were patent cases, 1,782 were trademark cases, 1,303 were unfair competition cases, 636 were technological contract cases, 156 were related to new plant varieties, and 504 were related to other IP cases.
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