Hamburg, July 31 - CIOPORA has published a legal opinion on the recent referral by the Spanish Supreme Court ("Tribunal Supremo") to the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) concerning questions of interpretation of the harvested material, provisional protection and exhaustion provisions of EU Regulation 2100/94 on the Community Plant Variety Rights (“the Regulation”).
The case, which has been attributed number C-176/18, is about the (partly provisional) protection of the Nadorcott mandarin variety and, in particular, the question whether the mandarins harvested from trees propagated and placed on the market without the right owner’s consent, prior to them being planted and further cultivated by a Spanish grower, amount to an infringement of the Nadorcott Plant Variety Right, despite the fact that the unauthorized propagation and first sale took place prior to the grant of that right.
According to CIOPORA, this question should be answered affirmatively.
As CIOPORA regards this matter to be of high importance to its members as well as of significance for the legal practice in the area of Plant Variety Protection in the European Union, the breeders' association prepared a detailed legal opinion providing its view on the questions referred to the CJEU by the Spanish Court: