Current Legal Issues in Intellectual Property Rights and Protection for Crop Plants

Numerous intellectual property protection options are available for plants and plant‐based inventions both in the United States and abroad, including utility and plant patents, plant variety rights, plant breeders' rights, trade secrets, contract law, and trademarks. Careful planning and consideration of these options is critical to obtaining and maintaining optimum intellectual property protection. Recent court cases concerning patent law, as well as other current intellectual property topics such as genetically modified organism labeling and protection for essentially derived varieties, lend additional guidance to consideration of these important intellectual property options.