The PVPA gives breeders up to 25 years of exclusive control over new, distinct, uniform, and stable sexually reproduced or tuber propagated plant varieties.
A major expression of plant breeders' rights in the United States, the PVPA grants protection similar to that available through patents, but these legal schemes differ in critical respects.
The PVPA confers a limited period of legal control to breeders of sexually reproduced or tuber propagated plant varieties.
Unlike the Patent Act of 1952, the PVPA contains three exemptions that significantly limit the scope of the plant breeder's exclusive right.
First, the PVPA's provision safeguarding the "public interest in wide usage" allows the United States Department of Agriculture to declare an otherwise protected variety open on the basis of equitable remuneration to the owner, upon a finding that no more than two years of compulsory licensing of a protected variety is necessary in order to insure an adequate supply of fiber, food, or feed and that the owner is unwilling or unable to meet public demand at a price which may reasonably be deemed fair.
In 1994, legislation to bring the PVPA into compliance with the 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention also included amendments that eliminated the exemption for sales, but continued to allow farmers to save and replant seed on their own farms without infringement.
The landmark Supreme Court decision of Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303 (1980), suggested the possibility of securing utility patents on plants previously thought eligible solely for protection under the PVPA.
"The Parable of the Seeds: Interpreting the Plant Variety Protection Act in Furtherance of Innovation Policy".