Pages 77-78

INTERNATIONAL TREATIES

EC Treaty

Supplementary protection certificate for plant protection products

On 23 July 1996 the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union adopted the Regulation concerning the creation of a supplementary protection certificate for plant protection products1. The Regulation enters into force on 8 February 1997 and from that date is directly applicable in all EU states in which plant protection products were patentable on 1 January 1990. In the others (Greece, Portugal and Spain) it applies only as from 2 January 1998.

The Regulation creates a supplementary protection certificate providing for the extension by up to five years of the effects of patent protection for new active substances or combinations of active substances of plant protection products authorised within the European Union for the first time. Its provisions correspond fully to those of the Regulation concerning the creation of a supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products of 18 June 19922.

As with the protection certificate for medicinal products, the conditions for grant of the certificate for plant protection products and its effects depend on the official authorisation to place the product on the market and on the protection afforded by a national or European (basic) patent. The protection certificate is granted by the competent authority of the state which granted the basic patent or, in the case of a European patent, on whose behalf it was granted. No state has so far instructed the European Patent Office to grant protection certificates.

Special attention is drawn to the transitional provisions in Article 19 of the Regulation, under which a product which is protected by a valid basic patent at the time of entry into force of the Regulation may be granted a protection certificate if the authorisation to place it on the market was obtained after 1 January 1985 and the certificate is applied for within six months of the date on which the Regulation enters into force.

For the national implementing provisions to the Regulation, please refer to the relevant national publications.