What changes have occurred in market order after the revision of the Seed Law?
The draft revision of the Seed Law deliberated this time has strengthened the protection of intellectual property rights and introduced the concept of "essentially derived varieties" to protect the lawful rights and interests of the holders of the original plant variety rights. In the market circulation link, it has also increased the penalties for illegal infringements in order to crack down on the widespread unfair competition chaos in the seed market.
Since the current Seed Law was implemented in 2000, it has been fifteen years, during which, along with the rapid development of China's seed industry, the methods of illegal infringement have also continuously increased. In recent years, in addition to counterfeit and fake seeds flooding the market, there have also been large sales of unlabeled seeds. Those committing illegal acts put infringing or inferior seeds into packaging bags without labels (that is, the packaging or labels do not indicate important information such as the seed name and manufacturer in accordance with the provisions of the Seed Law; in the industry these are collectively called unlabeled seeds) and sell them to farmers through various channels such as neighbors, acquaintances and friends. According to the provisions of the current Seed Law, regardless of how large the sales volume is, this act can only be punished with an administrative fine of more than 1,000 yuan and less than 10,000 yuan, and other legal liabilities cannot be pursued under provisions such as selling fake seeds or infringing trademark rights. Because the cost of illegality is too low, this behavior has become widespread. Due to the lack of strong legal support, both law enforcement agencies handling cases and enterprises safeguarding their rights have found it extremely difficult, and many farmers have therefore suffered major losses.
It is hoped that this revision of the Seed Law will bring acts such as operating seeds that should be packaged but are not packaged, or that have no labels, into the scope of supervision of fake seeds, so that in the future those responsible for selling unlabeled seeds will not only be subject to administrative penalties, but if the circumstances are serious, will also be held criminally responsible.
It can be foreseen that after the draft amendment to the Seed Law is deliberated and passed, the future Chinese seed market will be a fair, orderly and healthily developing market.