Geneva,Switzerland
March 27, 2015

The Council of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) held its thirtysecond extraordinary session on March 27, 2015.

Developments included:

Positive decision on the Draft Law of Egypt

The Council took a positive decision on the conformity of the “Draft provisions of Book Four ‘Plant Variety Protection’ of Law No. 82 of 2002 Pertaining to the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights” (“Draft Law”) of Egypt with the provisions of the 1991 Act of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV Convention), which allows Egypt once the Draft Law is adopted with no changes and the Law is in force, to deposit its instrument of accession to the 1991 Act.

Extension of the appointment of the Vice Secretary-General

The Council decided to extend the appointment of the Vice Secretary-General from December 1, 2015, until November 30, 2018.

Adoption of documents

The Council adopted the following documents:

 UPOV/INF/4/4 Financial Regulations and Rules of UPOV (Revision)
 UPOV/INF/15/3 Guidance for Members of UPOV (Revision)

All adopted documents will be included in the UPOV Collection (see http://www.upov.int/upov_collection/en/).

Test Guidelines

The Council welcomed the adoption by the Technical Committee of 12 new Guidelines for the Conduct of Tests for Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability (Test Guidelines) and 14 revised Test Guidelines. UPOV has now developed 313 Test Guidelines, all of which are freely available on the UPOV website (http://www.upov.int/test_guidelines/en/).

Experience of members of the Union in the Examination of New Plant Varieties

The Council noted that the number of genera and species for which members of the Union had indicated their practical experience in the examination of distinctness, uniformity and stability (DUS) had increased from 3,305 in 2014 to 3,382 in 2015 (+ 2.3%). The Council also noted that information on members of the Union with practical experience in DUS examination was freely accessible via the GENIE database (see http://www.upov.int/genie/en/).

Website: http://www.upov.int

Published: March 27, 2015