Selection Achievements

Inventions

Utility Models

Industrial Designs

Trade Marks and Service Marks

Geographical Indications

Company Names

Topologies of Integrated Circuit

Selection Achievements

Protecton of Undisclosed Information

Unfair Competition

Copyright and Related Rights

Domain Names

Valuation of Intellectual Property

Republic of Belarus, Minsk

Nezavisimosty pr., 56-302
tel.: +375 17 331 23 32
fax: +375 17 331 16 26
GSM: +375 296 370 370
+375 298 730 730
office@lexpatent.by

According to the legislation of the Republic of Belarus, a selection achievement in plant cultivation is deemed the plant variety obtained artificially or selectively and having one or more essential characteristics which distinguish it from already existing plant ones.

Selection achievements in animal breeding are not protected in the Republic of Belarus.

A legal protection is granted to a plant variety (the list of plant varieties protected in the Republic of Belarus) if it has the following criteria of patentability: novelty, distinctness, uniformity and stability.

The right to a plant variety is protected by the State and attested by a plant patent granted by the National Center of Intellectual Property.

The patent is valid for 25 years from the date of the plant variety registration in the State Register of Protected Plant Varieties.

The scope of legal protection of a variety is defined by its official denomination registered in the Register of Protected Varieties.

An application for the grant of a plant patent should contain:

• A petition for the grant of a plant patent in due form adopted by the patent authority;
• A filled plant variety questionnaire in due form adopted by the patent authority;
• A document attesting payment of the fee for application filing;
• A power of attorney.

The examination of an application includes a preliminary (formal) and a substantive one (examination as to patentability).

Not later than six months from the date of completion of preliminary examination the patent body publishes data on the application (except for the cases provided by the legislation). A claimed plant variety is granted a provisional legal protection from the date of publication of the application up to the date of registration of the variety in the Register of Protected varieties.

During patent examination they check the patentability of a plant variety and establish the priority if it has not been established in the course of the preliminary examination. The patent examination of a plant variety comprises checking the claimed variety on novelty, evaluating it on conformity with the criteria of distinctness, uniformity, stability and is carried out by the techniques and within the terms determined by an authorized organization testing and protecting plant varieties (now - the State Inspection on Plant Variety Testing and Protection, hereinafter - the State Inspection).

Within six months after the decision-making on granting a patent the patent body publishes information on the grant of a patent in its official bulletin. Simultaneously with the publication the patent organ brings data on a variety into the Register of Protected Plant Varieties and grants a patent the person for whom it was sought. The author of the plant variety, not being the patentee, is granted a certificate confirming his/her authorship.

The author of a variety (plant selection breeder) or his/her assignee has the right to file an application and carry out protection of a breed in foreign countries.

The author of a variety (plant selection breeder) or his/her assignee can choose a State with which the Republic of Belarus is bound up with a bilateral or multilateral international treaty on protection of plants varieties, for filing with the competent body of this State the first application for the protection of the breed