Philippine Plant Variety Protection Act of 2002 (Republic Act No. 9168 of 2002)

The Plant Variety Protection Act of 2002 provides exclusive rights to plant breeders over the propagating material of their protected variety, i.e. the right to authorize the production or reproduction, conditioning for the purpose of propagation, offering to sale, selling or other marketing strategies, exporting, importing and stocking of the plant variety. The Certificate of Plant Variety Protection does not, however, extend to the traditional right of small farmers to save, use, exchange, share or sell farm produce of a variety protect¬ed under the Act; the objective is to maintain these practices of small-scale farmers. The National Plant Protection Board determines the conditions under which this exception shall apply. The Board is chaired by the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, co-chaired by the Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology and vice-chaired by the Director-General of the Intellectual Property Office. Members include (1) the Director of the Bureau of Plant Industry; (2) the Director of the Institute of Plant Breeding of the University of the Philippines; (3) the President of the Philippine Seed Industry Association; (4) a representative of the federation of small-scale farmers; and (5) a registrar. So far, there have been no reports of infringement.