Mutagenesis

In April 2024, Inf’OGM reported on its interview with a Dutch seed company feeling threatened by KWS patents. This is not an isolated case since De Bolster, another Dutch seed company, has had to apply constant legal vigilance for several years to prevent its varietal varieties from being covered by an ever-increasing number of patent rights, otherwise its survival would be jeopardized. Frans Carree, Director of De Bolster’s Variety Development Department, answered our questions.

During the parliamentary work on the proposal for a European regulation on plant reproductive material, known as the “seeds regulation”, a question arose: should so-called “non-targeted mutagenesis” be considered as an “essentially biological process”? As these processes are excluded from patentability, the question may seem important. But such a decision would not be without consequences for the regulation of GMOs.

On 20 May 2023, the new Austrian Patent Act came into force. It specifies the exclusions from patentability in the field of plants and animals. One of the aims of these changes is to guarantee a degree of independence for breeders from patent right holders. What will happen in fine?

According to companies, GMO products of genetic modification techniques are patentable because they are considered “inventions”. But to obtain these patents, the European Patent Office (EPO) require from the applicants to be clear about the techniques used for obtaining the organisms or genetic sequences covered by their patent. This obligation shows that, for the EPO, it is possible to differentiate, e.g. between GMOs obtained by patentable mutagenesis techniques on the one hand, and GMOs obtained by other techniques or any other organisms present in nature, on the other hand.