Comparison of legal measurement regarding Plant Variety Protection

Abstract

Thailand has made legal measures for the protection of plant varieties for more than 20 years under the Plant Variety Protection Act 1999. However, this law has not effectively resolved all the problems of plant variety protection. The Plant Variety Protection Act 1999 was, as a result, amended in 2017. This research is therefore aimed to conduct comparative study between the Plant Variety Protection Act version 1999 and the Plant Variety Protection Act version 2017. This research article is part of the main research report entitling Legal Measures for the Protection of Plant Varieties: the Case Study of the Plant Variety Protection Act 1999. The research is a documentary research by studying various documents in relation to international agreements and five main laws associated with the plant variety protection. The research found that the Plant Variety Protection Act 1999 and the new draft of the Plant Variety Protection Act are based on the concept of conservation and utilization of natural resources with a key principle of access and distribution of natural resources. This is consistent with many international agreements including: the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Nagoya Protocol, International treaty on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (ITPGR); and the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). In relation to the legal measures, the Plant Varieties Protection Act 1999 covers the measures in terms of content and process of accessing and sharing benefits as well as the provision recognizing rights of breeders and farmers. On the other hand, the new Plant Varieties Protection Act pays less attention on access rights of farmers; benefit sharing measures; and empowering rights of farmers which will affect farmers in the country. Thus, the author disagrees with law ignoring rights of farmers. Then the Plant Varieties Protection Act version 1999 should be continuously enforced, but with slightly amending to focus on rights of farmers to distribution of seeds within the community. This would significantly help promoting more breeding for famers who is the majority of society and eventually help the country achieving stability and sustainability in biodiversity of plant resources.