Strasbourg, 30/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - The EU should avoid granting patents to varieties obtained through traditional methods of selection, was the general view among EU agriculture ministers at their working lunch on the sidelines of the Council in Luxembourg on Thursday 22 October.
The discussion followed on from a decision by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patents Office (EPO) at the end of March approving the patent application for varieties of broccoli and tomato produced by conventional selection. The EPO said that, while processes of grafting or cross-breeding and selection cannot be patented, the plants or animals produced through these processes are patentable. The member states fear, however, that this may hamper research and innovation in Europe, affecting the exemption enjoyed by seed producers within the framework of the plant variety certificate.
Luxembourg Minister Fernand Etgen said at the press conference that the Luxembourg Presidency would write to the EU Competitiveness Council - the lead on legal protection for biotechnological inventions - to express the concerns of the agriculture ministers.
While awaiting clarification of the situation, the EPO continues to grant patents for conventional crops, the latest of which is a seedless pepper developed by Syngenta. In a press release published on 22 October, the association No Patent on Seeds criticises the granting of a patent to a variety “derived from conventional breeding using existing biodiversity”. “There was no genetic engineering involved in the process”, it argues. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)