SUMMARY REPORT OF THE MEETING OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON COMMUNITY PLANT VARIETY RIGHTS HELD ON 24 NOVEMBER 2004 (CCAB, BRUSSELS)

Chairman: M. Gennatas.

All the Member States were present with the exception of Italy (IT), Portugal (PT) and Slovenia (SI).

For the purpose of possible votes, PT mandated SP, SI mandated CZ.

3 representatives of the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) were invited by the services of the Commission as experts, as members of a Community Body involved in Community Plant Variety Rights.

1. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ADOPTION OF RULES OF PROCEDURES FOR THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON COMMUNITY PLANT VARIETY RIGHTS ( REF: SANCO/2004.00514)

Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) N° 2100/94 of 27 July 1994 on Community Plant Variety Rights and in particular Article 115 thereof and to Council Decision (EC) N° 1999/468/EC of 28 June 1999 laying down the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission, and in particular its Article 7(1) thereof, the Standing Committee on Community Plant Variety Rights needs urgently to adopt its internal rules of procedures, on the basis of standard rules.

A draft document on rules of procedure for the Community Plant Variety Rights Committee was prepared by the services of the Commission in DA, DE, EN, ES, F, FIN, GR, NL, PT, SV languages and was submitted for discussion.

After a general presentation of the draft document, the chairman suggested to discuss on it, Article by Article.

Because of linguistics remarks on the different translated versions made by some Member States, it was decided to work on the English text as the authentic text.

One delegation asked for written explanation by the services of the Commission on the meanings of and on the links between Article 6 and Article 12 as regards the definition of “experts” and “designated persons” before a vote is taken.

To conclude on this point, the chairman agreed to prepare a written explanation for the next meeting confirming his explanations during the meeting on the links between Article 6 and 12, and agreed to mention in this summary report that CPVO will be regularly invited to attend the meetings of the Standing Committee Meeting on Community Plant Variety Rights as expert for the Commission.

2. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE VOTE ON A DRAFT COMMISSION REGULATION AMENDING REGULATION(EC)N° 1239/95 AS REGARDS THE GRANT OF COMPULSORY LICENCES AND THE RULES ON PUBLIC INSPECTION AND ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS HELD BY THE COMMUNITY PLANT VARIETY OFFICE (CPVO): (REF : SANCO/1026/2004 REV 8 )

Because of the last amendments of the basic Regulation on Community Plant Variety Rights (Council Regulation (EC) N°2100/94) on new rules as regards proceedings before CPVO on public inspection and access to documents (based on Regulation(EC)N° 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents) and on Community licences to be granted by CPVO, including compulsory licences, the implementation rules of this basic Regulation need to be amended accordingly.

Following the normal procedure, the Administrative Council of the CPVO was consulted before the meeting and gave a favourable opinion on the proposed amendments of Article 82 and 84 and 37 to 44 of Regulation (EC) N° 1239/95 with factual suggestions to amend the text. These suggestions were taken into consideration by the services of the Commission in the draft proposal presented to the Member States at the meeting.

During the discussions, several suggestions were made by the delegations to amend the draft text;

The most important suggestion to amend the draft proposal referred to a reference to “patent” in the last sentence of Article 41(4):

Because of this last suggestion, an internal consultation needs to be undertaken within the services of the Commission as regards the patent question, before a vote is taken.

3. INFORMATION ON THE ELECTRONIC MAILBOX “CIRCA” AND ON ITS USE FOR THE NEEDS OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE:

An explanation followed by a practical demonstration was given by the services of the Commission on the electronic mailbox “CIRCA” and more particularly on the use of a specific site within this CIRCA system, as a communication network between the services of the Commission and the Member States for the needs of the Standing Committee on Community Plant Variety Rights: all preparatory documents for meetings and all information deemed as of great interest for the delegations in the Community Plant variety rights sector will be placed on the site. The delegations were invited to access to the site as soon as possible, following written instructions on how to get access to it.

4. ACCESS AND BENEFICE SHARING AS REGARDS PLANT GENETIC RESOURCES

4.1. Information and discussion on access and benefit sharing provisions of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture

The services of the Commission updated the Committee on the implementation of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture: they reported on the 2nd meeting of the Interim Committee of the International Treaty, which took place at the FAO headquarters in Rome on 15-19 November 2004, and informed about plans for the future.

4.2. Information and discussion on the evolution of the European Community position on access and benefit sharing in relation with patents and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD):

The services of the Commission updated the Committee on the forthcoming meetings under the CBD in which an 'international regime on access and benefit-sharing' will be discussed. These include a first open-ended working group meeting in February 2005 in Bangkok, a second open- ended working group in 2006 in Spain and COP8 in Brazil in May 2006. They also updated the group on the EU internal discussions on a possible requirement for patent applicants to disclose the origin of the genetic resources on which an invention is based. They highlighted areas on which an agreement has been reached as well as areas where more discussions are needed. The internal debate on this will continue in the Council in early December. They also offered to repeat a presentation on the CBD in one of the future Committee meetings should members feel that this would be useful.

5. OTHER BUSINESS

5.1. Fees payable to the Community Plant Variety Office:

The Services of the Commission and the representative of the CPVO informed the group on the financial reserve of this Office which has reached a level which exceeds the level necessary to safeguard the continuity of its operation. Therefore, the transitory period during which the level of fees has not been revaluated should be extended; the Commission will prepare a draft Commission Regulation amending Regulation (EC) N° 1238/95.

5.2. Definition of “small farmers” in the “Plant Variety Rights Sector”:

The services of the Commission distributed to the Member States a copy of the letter send to France concerning the definition of “small farmers” in Article 14 of Council Regulation (EC) N° 2100/94, and confirmed that this definition will still be valid even after the deletion of Regulation (EC) N° 1765/92. The services of the Commission distributed a working document on the first result of a survey on the definition of “small farmers” in the National legislation of the Member States as regards the “farmer exemption” in the National Plant Variety Rights system.

5.3 UPOV:

As a matter of information, the services of the Commission informed the Member States on the last development of the accession of the Community to the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV).

Bernard Van Goethem
Acting Director
Signed

Source & list of participants: http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/committees/regulatory/scpvr/rap06.pdf