[ Article XX. Industrial Designs

1. Each Party shall provide for the protection of independently created industrial designs that are new or original. A Party may provide that:

a) designs are not new or original if they do not significantly differ from known designs or combinations of known design features; and

b) such protection shall not extend to designs dictated essentially by technical or functional considerations.

5. Each Party shall provide a term of protection for industrial designs of at least 10 years. ]

[Industrial designs

Article XX

“Industrial drawing, design or model” shall be understood to mean the particular appearance of a product that results from any arrangement of lines or combination of colors, or any two-dimensional or three-dimensional outward shape, line, outline, form, texture, or material, without the intended use or purpose of the said product being thereby changed, shall be considered an industrial design.

Article XX

The right to register an industrial design pertains to the designer and may be assigned or transferred by succession. 
Registration right holders may be natural persons or legal entities. 
If several persons make an industrial design jointly, they shall share the right to its registration. 
If several persons make the same industrial design, each independently of the others, registration shall be granted to the person or assignee with the first filing date or, where priority is claimed, date of application.

Article XX

Industrial designs shall be registrable provided they are new. An industrial design shall not be considered new if, before the filing date or validly claimed priority date, it has been made accessible to the public in any place or at any time, by description, use, or any other means.
An industrial design shall not be deemed new by virtue of the mere fact that it embodies minor differences in relation to earlier creations, or that it refers to a category of products different from that to which the said creations belong.

Article XX

The following creations shall not be registrable:

a) industrial designs when, the prevention of the commercial exploitation of which within the territory of the Party where registration is being applied for, is necessary to protect morality or public order. To those ends, commercial exploitation of an industrial design shall not be considered contrary to morals and public order merely by reason that the exploitation is prohibited or regulated by a legal or administrative provision;

b) industrial designs the appearance of which was dictated essentially by technical or functional considerations and that fail to incorporate any arbitrary contribution by the designer; and,

c) industrial designs that consist only of a form, the exact reproduction of was necessary to permit the mechanical assembly or connection of the product incorporating the design with another product of which it is a part. This prohibition shall not be applicable to products in which the design consists of another way to permit the assembly or the multiple connection of the product or of its connection within a modular system.

a) “breeder” shall mean the person that has created or discovered and developed a plant variety,

b) “plant variety” shall mean a set of plants from a single botanical taxon of the lowest known rank which, irrespective of whether it fully meets the conditions for the granting of breeder’s rights, may

i) be defined by the expression of the characteristics stemming from a certain genotype or a certain combination of genotypes,

ii) be distinguished from any other set of plants by the expression of at least one such characteristic,

iii) be considered as a unit, having regard to its ability to self propagate without alteration.

5. Parties shall recognize and guarantee that the right granted to the breeder shall be tantamount to declaring the following subject to the prior authorization of the breeder:

a) production for commercial purposes,

b) sale,

c) marketing of the reproductive and propagating material, per se, of the plant variety.

8. The breeder’s authorization shall not be necessary to use the plant variety as the initial source of variation with a view to creating other varieties. The authorization to market such plant varieties shall be subject to the laws of each State Party. Likewise, such authorization shall be required when the repeated use of the plant variety becomes necessary for the commercial production of another variety.

9. Members may restrict the right of the breeder with the intention of allowing farmers to use the product of the harvest of the protected variety for reproductive or propagating purposes 

10. The right of the breeder shall be granted:

a) where the plant variety is new, distinctive, homogenous, stable and designated by a name intended as its generic name; and

b) when the requirements stipulated in a) have been reviewed.

12. On the date the application for protection is filed with a State Party, the plant variety:

a) must not have been offered for sale or marketed, with the consent of the breeder, in the territory of the said State, or if so provided in the law of the State, not having been offered for sale or marketed for over a year, and

b) must not have been offered for sale or marketed, in the territory of any other State, with the consent of the breeder, for a prior period of more than six years in the case of vines, forest trees, fruit trees, and ornamental trees, including in each case their root stock, or for a prior period of more than four years in the case of other plants.

a) the requirements set as to novelty and differentiation of the plant variety for which registration is being sought were not effectively complied with at the time the deed of protection was issued;

b) the right of the breeder was granted to a person that was not entitled thereto, unless it was assigned to the person in whom the right was vested.

a) the requirements for homogeneity and stability were not complied with effectively;

b) the breeder is unable to submit to the competent authority the reproductive or propagating material that will make it possible to breed the plant varieties with its characteristics, as they were defined when protection was granted;

c) the breeder did not pay within the time periods specified the fees due, where applicable, for the extension of his rights;

[ Article XX. New Plant Varieties

Article XX.

Each Party shall recognize and guarantee the right known as “breeders’ rights,” through a special registration system, in order to protect the rights arising from the breeding of plant varieties.

Article XX.

The right granted to a breeder of a plant variety is an intellectual property right that confers on its holder an exclusive right, under which the breeder’s authorization is required for certain acts involving the exploitation of the protected variety. 

Article XX.

Breeders’ rights shall be marketable, transferable and inheritable. The owner of the right may grant licensing authorities to third parties for the use of the protected varieties. 

Article XX.

Breeders’ rights shall extend to all plant genera and species, and shall apply, in general, to whole plants, including any type of flower, fruit or seed, and any other part thereof that can be used as material for reproduction or propagation. Breeders’ rights shall also be granted when the variety is new, distinct, uniform and stable.

Article XX

The right granted to the breeder shall be for 20 years from the date on which such protection was granted. For vines, forest trees, fruit trees and ornamental trees, including, in each case, their root-stock trees, protection shall be for 25 years. Once the period of protection has expired, the varieties shall be considered to have fallen into the public domain. ]

[ Plant Varieties

Article XX

The parties shall recognize and guarantee protection of the rights of breeders of new plant varieties.

The parties shall encourage research activities and technology transfer related to the obtaining of new plant varieties.

Article XX

The scope of application of this agreement shall cover any botanical genus or species, provided that their cultivation, possession or use are not prohibited for reasons of human, animal or plant health.

Article XX

For purposes of the present Agreement, the following definitions shall apply:

LIVE SAMPLE: the sample of the variety provided by the applicant a plant breeder certificate, which will be used to carry out tests of novelty, distinctiveness, uniformity and stability.

VARIETY: set of cultivated botanical items that are distinguished by certain morphological, physiological, cytological or chemical characteristics that can be perpetuated by reproduction, multiplication or propagation.

ESSENTIALLY DERIVED VARIETY: a variety shall be deemed to be essentially derived from an initial variety when it is predominantly derived from the initial variety, or from a variety that is itself predominantly derived from the initial variety, while retaining the expression of the essential characteristics that result from the genotype or combination of genotypes of the initial variety, but which is still is clearly distinguishable from the initial variety, conforming to the initial variety in the expression of the essential characteristics that result from the genotype or combination of genotypes of the initial variety, except for the differences which result from the act of derivation.

MATERIAL: material deriving from plant reproduction or multiplication in any form; harvested product, including whole plants and parts thereof; and any product made indirectly from the proceeds of the harvest.

Article XX

Parties shall grant breeders certificates to the creator of a plant variety, provided it is new, uniform, distinct and stable, and that it has been given a denomination which will be its generic designation.
For purposes of this Agreement, “creation” shall mean the breeding of a new variety by the application of scientific knowledge to an inheritable plant improvement.

Article XX

A variety shall be deemed to be new, or novel, if the material of reproduction or multiplication, or harvested product, has not been sold or otherwise disposed of to third parties, by or with the consent of the breeder or his assignee, for the purpose of commercially exploiting the variety.

Novelty shall be deemed to have been lost when:

a) Exploitation has begun at least one year before the date of filing the application for a breeder’s certificate, or validly claimed priority date, if sale or disposal took place within the territory of any Party; 

b) Exploitation has begun at least four years before, or in the case of trees or vines, earlier than six years before the date of filing the application for a breeders certificate, or validly claimed priority date, if sale or disposal took place in the territory other than that of Party.

a) the result of an abuse which injures the interest of the breeder or his assignee;

b) part of an agreement to transfer the right on the variety, provided this has not been physically transferred to a third party;

c) part of an agreement under which a third party increases, on behalf of the breeder, stocks of the material of reproduction or multiplication;

d) part of an agreement under which a third party undertakes field or laboratory testing, or small-scale processing tests in order to evaluate the variety; or when

e) relate to harvested material obtained as a byproduct or surplus of the variety or from the activities mentioned in subparagraphs (c) and (d) of this article; or,

f) carried out by any other unlawful means.

a) production, reproduction, multiplication or propagation;

b) preparation for the purposes of reproduction, multiplication or propagation;

c) offering for sale;

d) selling or any other act that implies introduction into the market for commercial purposes, of the material of reproduction, propagation or multiplication;

e) export;

f) import;

g) stocking for any of the purposes mentioned in the preceding paragraphs;

h) Commercial use of ornamental plants, or parts thereof, as multiplication material for the purpose of producing ornamental or fruit bearing plants or parts thereof, or cut flowers;

i) the acts referred to in the previous paragraphs in respect of harvested material, including entire plants and parts thereof, obtained through the unauthorized use of material of reproduction or multiplication of the protected variety shall require authorization from the breeder, unless the breeder has had reasonable opportunity to exercise his right in relation to the said material of reproduction or multiplication.

a) privately, for non-commercial purposes;

b) for experimental purposes; and

c) for the purpose of breeding and exploiting a new variety, except in the case of a variety essentially derived from a protected variety. Any such new variety may be registered in the name of its breeder.

a) a new reproduction, multiplication or propagation of the protected variety, subject to the restriction established in Article XX of the present Agreement;

b) export of the material of the protected variety, such as to permit its reproduction, to a country that does not provide protection to varieties of the plant species to which the exported variety belongs, except where such material is destined for human, animal or industrial consumption.

a) is secret in the sense that it is not, as a body or in the precise configuration and assembly of its components, generally known among or readily accessible to persons within the circles that normally deal with the kind of information in question; 

b) has commercial value because it is secret; and 

c) has been subject to reasonable steps under the circumstances, by the person lawfully in control of the information, to keep it secret.