The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service today announced that it is establishing supplemental fees for its Plant Variety Protection Office.

The rule allows the PVPO to charge supplemental fees for a variety of administrative services that are not currently charged by the program. These include: replenishment of seed low in germination or seed number; submission of new application data after notice of allowance, but prior to certificate issuance; recording any revision, withdrawal, or revocation of an assignment; and protest to issuance of certificate. In addition, the allowance and issuance fee is increased to recover the costs of enhancing the PVPO electronic archiving capabilities. A list of the fee schedule including the new supplemental fees may be found at http://www.ams.usda.gov/science/pvpo/pvpindex.htm. 

The Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970, as amended, requires that reasonable fees be collected in order to maintain the program.

The final rule will be published in the May 19 Federal Register. The new fee schedule will be effective on June 20 days after publication of the final rule. For further information, contact Janice M. Strachan, Senior Examiner, Plant Variety Protection Office, National Agricultural Library Building, 10301 Baltimore Blvd., Beltsville MD 20705, or via e-mail at PVPOmail@usda.gov.

Federal Register notice in PDF format:
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20051800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2005/pdf/05-9963.pdf