The agreement on the protection of intellectual property rights reached at the fifth round of negotiations on the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) between Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) seriously affects plant variety protection (PVP) rights in two major ways.
First, it implies that each side recognizes the priorities of the other and that both agree to process applications for intellectual property rights protection for plant varieties.
At the same time, negotiations are also being held on expanding the scope of plant varieties to which intellectual property rights can be applied. Unfortunately, Taiwan stands to lose a lot from this agreement because the basis for “farmer’s exemptions” vary widely between the two countries.
According to China’s plant variety protection law, Chinese farmers can breed seedlings of protected plant varieties without infringing intellectual property rights, as long as they do not sell the seedlings. For example, a Chinese farmer can buy a seedling of a Taiwanese peach subject to PVP in China, breed another 1,000 seedlings and then plant it in his own orchard. In other words, although farmers do not sell the seedlings, they are permitted to sell the produce of the peach trees year after year without being guilty of infringement.
This situation arises because China’s concept of farmer’s exemptions applies to all plant varieties and plant variety rights do not extend to the yield from a growing season. In contrast, Taiwanese farmers doing the same thing with peaches grown by Chinese farmers subject to PVP in Taiwan would be guilty of infringement because Taiwan’s protection act covers the yield from a growing season, while the farmer’s exemption is restricted to plant varieties announced by the government. At the moment, paddy rice is the only variety subject to such an exemption.
Taiwan and China’s PVP acts differ because they are based on different versions of the same international convention. Taiwan’s regulations are based on the 1991 version of the UPOV Convention (Union International Pour la Protection des Obtentions Vegetables, or International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants), while China’s is based on the 1978 version.
The earlier version preferred by Beijing stated that the farmer’s exemption was applicable to all varieties. It remained in place for 10 years until it was found to be riddled with loopholes. These effectively rendered PVP acts meaningless because of the farmer’s exemption and the fact that growers of new varieties gained almost no royalties for their innovations. Recognition of these problems led to call for the act to be revised, resulting in a new updated version in 1991.
However, due to the national importance of some crops, a certain degree of flexibility was maintained. This ensured that farmers in some countries, depending on national needs, would continue to enjoy exemptions, with the express purpose of growing crops for domestic consumption.
This analysis indicates that, in terms of agriculture, at least, Taiwan has made significant losses as a result of signing the ECFA.
Warren Kuo is a professor in the Department of Agronomy at National Taiwan University.Shieh Ming-yan is a professor in the College of Law at National Taiwan University.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not