New Plant Varieties

– Decision 345 of the Cartagena Agreement Common Law Commission for the Andean Community Countries (October 21, 1993).
– Supreme Decree 008-96-ITINCI, Protection Regulations of the Rights of the new plant variety possessors.
– Supreme Decree 035-2011-PCM, Supreme Decree that approves the Regulation for the Protection of the Rights of Plant Varieties Breeders.
– Resolution 046-2000-INIA Approving the Regulations for the Deposit and Management of the Living Sample of a Plant Variety.
– Resolution 047-2000-INIA Approving Standards for the Technical Evaluation of New Plant Varieties.
– Law 28126, which sanctions infringements on Plant Breeder's Rights.

Membership in International Conventions

– International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), 1991 Act, since August 8, 2011.

Filing

Applicant: anybody (physical person or legal entity) who has created a plant variety which is new, homogeneous, distinguishable and stable by means of the application of scientific knowledge to the inheritable improvement of plants, and to which a name was assigned which constitutes its generic name.

Novelty is lost when:the exploitation has begun at least one year before the application date for the breeder’s certification or the claimed priority, if the sale or delivery occurred in a territory inside the Andean Community, or four years in a country outside the Andean Community. In the case of trees and wines, this period is at least six years before the breeder’s certification application or the claimed priority. Novelty is not lost when the exploitation is the result of: (a) an abuse in harm of the breeder or his/her assignee; (b) when it is part of an agreement to transfer the rights and provided it was not given to third parties; (c) when it is part of an agreement according to which a third party increases, by account of the breeder, the stocks of the reproduction or multiplication material; (d) when it is part of an agreement according to which a third party performed field, laboratory and/or processing essays in order to examine the variety; (e) when it has as subject the material obtained as co-product or surplus of the variety or in the activities mentioned in (c) and (d) above; and (f) when it was performed in any other illicit way.

Distinctiveness: a variety is deemed distinguishable if it differs clearly from any other whose existence is commonly known.

Homogeneity: a variety is considered uniform if it is similar enough in its essential features.

Stability: a variety is considered stable if its essential features remain unaltered from generation to generation and after each reproduction, multiplication or propagation cycle. The name must be distinctive enough in comparison to previously registered names.

Adequate generic denomination: the denomination of a plant variety is the name by which such variety will be known during the vigilance of the breeder’s certification. The denomination must (a) not be registered as a trademark; and (b) be sufficiently distinctive in relation to other prior registered denominations.

Priority: a priority of twelve months may be claimed from applications filed in any Andean Community country.

Filing requirements:
1. Identification data, address and/or power of attorney;
2. Name and nationality of the breeder;
3. Common and scientific name of the variety;
4. Indication of the proposed generic name of the variety;
5. Description, including the geographical and genetic origin of the variety, morphological, physiological, sanitary, physicochemical qualities;
6. Technical questionnaire;
7. Description of the method and procedure for obtaining the variety.

Electronic filing: enabled since April 2020 for users to send documents through the virtual reception desk on the website of INDECOPI. 

Electronic signatures: are accepted for writs by the virtual reception desk.

Protection

Duration: twenty to twenty-five years for wines, forest trees, fruit trees including their graft bearers; fifteen to twenty years for other species, calculated from the granting date.

Annuities: annuity fees for the maintenance of the validity of the protection must be paid.

Licenses: the titular of a granting certification can grant license for the variety’s exploitation.

Compulsory licenses: in exceptional or public interest cases, the State can grant a free-availability of the variety on the basis of a compensation.

Opposition: can be filed within thirty working days from the official publication.