Section 1 : Issue of plant variety certificates

I.-A plant variety may be the subject of a title known as a "plant variety certificate" which confers on its holder an exclusive right to produce, reproduce, package for the purposes of reproduction or multiplication, offer for sale, sell or market in any other form, export, import or hold for any of these purposes reproductive or multiplication material of the protected variety.

II.-Where the products referred to in 1° and 2° of this II have been obtained by the other than incidental or accidental and unauthorised use of propagating material of the protected variety, the exclusive right extends, unless the breeder could reasonably have exercised his right over the products in question:

1° To the harvested product, including whole plants and parts of plants;

2° To products made directly from a harvested product of the protected variety.

III.-The proprietor's exclusive right extends:

1° To varieties that are not clearly distinguishable from the protected variety within the meaning of Article L. 623-2 ;

2° Varieties whose production requires the repeated use of the protected variety;

3° Varieties essentially derived from the protected variety within the meaning of the same Article L. 623-2, where this variety is not itself an essentially derived variety.

IV.-Constitutes a variety essentially derived from another variety, known as the "initial variety", a variety which:

1° Is principally derived from the initial variety or from a variety which is itself principally derived from the initial variety;

2° Is clearly distinguishable from the initial variety within the meaning of the said Article L. 623-2;

3° Except for the differences resulting from the derivation, conforms to the initial variety in the expression of the essential characteristics resulting from the genotype or combination of genotypes of the initial variety.

V.-Subject to the provisions of Article L. 623-24-1, the production, offering, sale, placing on the market, import, export, transhipment, use and or possession for these purposes of the propagating material of the protected variety are prohibited, in the absence of the consent of the holder of the plant variety certificate.