In October 2023, the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) published a long-awaited updated Explanatory Note on Essentially Derived Varieties (EDVs). The UPOV Convention outlines a popular sui generis form of IP protection for plant varieties and was first established in 1961; EDVs have been a provision of the UPOV Convention since 1991. However, the bounds of what can constitute an EDV have often been difficult to devise in practice, and stakeholders have long been requesting clarification from UPOV, particularly in light of modern breeding techniques that may incorporate, for example, gene editing. This new guidance represents UPOV’s response to these concerns.
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