December 9 2024
2.30pm – 4pm
Breeders who create new plant varieties in Europe today are faced with an increasingly complex landscape of numerous, overlapping patents and plant variety rights. Critics of the growing patent practice fear that the liberalisation of regulatory law proposed by the European Commission for genetically modified plants produced by using new genetic engineering methods such as CRISPR/Cas in particular (NGT plants) could lead to a further increase in patents in the area of food and feed plants with negative consequences for small and medium-sized breeders, farmers and biodiversity.
The event will see the EU launch of a new legal study that outlines different legally approved pathways to change EU patent law and related contracts, especially the European Patent agreement, to exclude plants, plant varieties and their seeds and genetic resources from patent protection.
Join the discussion on the way forward to ensure continued diversity in seeds and actors in the European seed market and to safeguard a crisis-proof food system.
Welcome address by MEPs:
Martin Häusling, The Greens – Christophe Clergeau, S&D – Anja Hazekamp, The Left
An overview on patents on seeds, plants and genetic sequences in the EU
Christoph Then, No patents on Seeds
Suggestions for a patent reform: Conclusions of a legal study
Prof. Dr. Axel Metzger LL.M. (Harvard) (Humboldt University, Berlin)
Expert roundtable: Which way forward?
With experts from:
The European Commission, IFOAM Europe, European Coordination Via Campesina, Copa Cogeca, Arche Noah, Euroseeds
Moderation: Karl Bär, Member of German Bundestag, commissioner of the legal study
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