Further to the passing in the Lower House, the Upper House (House of Councillors) of Japan’s National Diet (parliament) debated and passed the revisions to the Plant Variety Protection and Seed Act (“Plant and Seed Act”) on December 2, 2020.[1] Another plank in Japan’s international intellectual property fortress has gone up.
Most of the Act will go into effect from April 1, 2021, making penalties for prohibited export of registered varieties from Japan.[2] Opposition continued, particularly among the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Communist Party of Japan, amid fears for the burden on Japanese farmers using registered varieties to continually purchase new seeds or acquire permission from plant variety owners.[3; see past article]
It will likely boost Japanese plant variety developers as far as their prospects for export revenues go. This has been in the 2010s, under the Liberal Democratic Party’s former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, a key hope of the Japanese government, attempting to safeguard and increase IP income to the shrinking economy and population. The Plant and Seed Act revisions fit within this strategy with the legal structures instituted to keep Japanese livestock genes from leaking overseas in another intellectual property loophole blocking this year.
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Taro Yaguchi
Sources
[1] Nikkei Shimbun. “改正種苗法が成立 参院本会議
[Plant Variety Protection and Seed Act revision passes Upper House session]” https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO66892770S0A201C2EAF000 December 2, 2020. Accessed December 3, 2020.
[2] House of Representatives, Japan. “種苗法の一部を改正する法律案 [Bill to revise partially the Plant and Seed Act].” http://www.shugiin.go.jp/internet/itdb_gian.nsf/html/gian/honbun/houan/g20109037.htm Text of the bill. Accessed December 3, 2020.
[3] “改正種苗法が成立 参院本会議
[Plant Variety Protection and Seed Act revision passes Upper House session].”
Header image from House of Counciliors, https://www.sangiin.go.jp/japanese/ugoki/r2/la201202.html of December 2, 2020 session. Accessed December 3, 2020.
