Revise document provision under the Plant Breeder's Rights Act to broaden the scope of documents that can be supplied

Issue summary

Document supply fees for IP rights have recently been consolidated into one fee for a supply of a single document, and a second fee for supply of a case file. However, while other rights allow a broad scope of documents to be accessed, the Plant Breeder's Rights (PBR) Act only allows for a very few limited documents to be publicly available.

As a result, if parties want to obtain access to other documents they need to do so under the Freedom of Information Act. Amending the Plant Breeder's Rights Act to provide an Open to Public Inspection mechanism for Plant Breeder's Rights more akin to patents and designs could streamline document provision and enable fees for document supply to better align with the other IP rights.

History

• On hold 6 June 2017
• Policy development 5 December 2022

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