CRITERIA USED TO DETERMINE ELIGIBILITY FOR PBRs


Who can apply?

Only the owner of a new variety is entitled to apply for a grant of PBRs. The owner will be the breeder or the discoverer of the variety, his/her employer or his/her successor in title. An application may however be made by an agent on behalf of the owner.

it is New

it is D istinct

it is U niform

it is S table

an acceptable denomination (variety name) is proposed

New Variety

A variety is considered to be new if propagating material, whole plant or harvested material of it .has not been sold or offered for sale with the agreement of the owner in Kenya for more than 1 year before the date of application, or outside Kenya, for more than 6 years before application date in the case of woody plants, or more than 4 years for non-woody plants.

The owner is expected to have taken every reasonable precaution to ensure that no plant of the new variety or any part of it is sold earlier than the time allowed.

This prior sale rule does not apply where the sale is part of a contractual arrangement for increasing the applicant's stock or for carrying out evaluation trials or tests under which the whole of the material produced directly or indirectly and any unused propagating material becomes or remains the property of the applicant; or plant material produced during the breeding, increasing of stock and trials or tests of the variety and not required for these purposes, is disposed off for non-propagating purposes.

Distinctness

The variety must be distinct from all commonly known varieties existing at the pi date of application, in one or more of the following characteristics: morphology (e.g. shape, colour); physiological (e.g. disease resistance); or other (e.g. protein content).

Uniformity
The variety must be sufficiently uniform.

Stability
The variety must remain true to its description after repeated propagation.

Denomination
Every applicant for Plant Breeders' Rights must propose a denomination for the new variety .The denomination should conform to internationally accepted UPOV guidelines on recommendations for variety denominations. If the proposed denomination is unacceptable the Registrar of PBRs will require the applicant to propose an alternative.