Protection of intellectual property rights for agricultural innovations : Evaluating Bangladesh’s progression towards the international plant variety protection regime

The author

Khorsed Zaman is a lecturer in law at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.

This article

This study is a critical legal analysis of intellectual property rights on the protection of plant varieties in Bangladesh. It is one of the first few legal studies on the country’s new plant variety protection law.

Bangladesh enacted its Plant Variety Protection Act (BPVPA) in May 2019. It was the first move to protect the country’s historically diversified plant varieties and genetic resources under its international commitments as a founding member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and Contracting Party to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). This study examines the new law and assesses the level of farmers’ and breeders’ rights in Bangladesh in the light of TRIPS, CBD and ITPGRFA.

Article 27.3(b) of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the WTO requires its members to protect plant varieties either through a patent system, or a sui generis system or a combination of the two. This article also investigates how far this sui generis law creates a balance between farmers’ and breeders’ rights and considers the public interest issues.