Reconsidering Plant Breeders'Rights Proclamation No.481/2006 Of Ethiopia_Lessons From India And China

The system for the protection of plant variety as one part of intellectual property matter devised to encourage creation of wide variety of intellectual goods and to safeguard the moral and economic rights of creators for their creations and the right of the general public in access to those creations.In particular,the creation of exclusive rights in relation to plant breeding is justified by the need to provide incentives for the development of new and better plant varieties.The assumption is that the development of new plant varieties would increase and a diversified pool of seeds/propagating material would be available to farmers.In Ethiopia,the issue of Legal protection for intellectual property rights(IPRs)is a recent phenomenon.Plant variety right introduced in Ethiopia by plant Breeder's Right Proclamation No.481/2006 in 2006 which expanded the intellectual property matters and the legal regime of the country.Although the introduction of this Breeder's Right Proclamation No.481/2006 is a significant step in widening the ambit of intellectual property protection system,there are some matters which need reconsideration to make the proclamation meet with its aim and create an effective sui generis system.Therefore,this thesis examines the existing plant variety regime and provides a proposals which would remedy the problems based on international and regional instruments as well as experiences of other countries that adopted sui generis system.