Türkiye’s Plant Breeder’s Rights scheme

Türkiye’s PBRs’ scheme is administered under the Law No. 5042 pertaining to Protection of Breeder’s Rights for New Plant Varieties and conforms with the International Union for the Protection of new Varieties of Plants (UPOV). Türkiye is a member of UPOV.

Turkish Scheme is being conducted by Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

All the varieties listed under the code system of UPOV can be eligible for protection in Türkiye.

The PBR scheme uses breeder testing to establish the Distinctiveness, Uniformity and Stability (DUS) of novel plant varieties. Using UPOV technical guidelines and procedures, breeders or their agents organize comparative trials to prove that each new variety meets the PBR criteria. Testing and examination procedures take place before the TTSM in Türkiye.

However DUS tests, prepared or in preparation by the examination offices of any UPOV member country, can be submitted along with the Turkish PBR application and this will suspend TTSM’s examination without any time limit. This being the case, Turkish application will proceed to grant as soon as the DUS results and variety description documents are issued and sent to TTSM.

Grant and Maintenance

Once the technical examination is completed, the testing agency sends the technical examination report to Turkish Registration Committee and the grant decision is published in the Turkish Plant Variety Bulletin.

After the registration, the annuities should be paid till the end of January every year. Failing to do so will cause the property right for plant varieties to lapse. There is no grace period applicable, however re-establishment of the rights can be possible if the failure was due to a force majeure causation.

Given that the annuities are duly paid, the protection term is normally 25 years from the grant, and 30 years for trees, vines and potatoes.