“Red Globe Grape”
摘要
For the purposes of granting a plant variety patent, the requirement of novelty is not lost as a result of mere disclosure (i.e. the accessibility of the invention to an indefinite number of persons who are in the position to learn its essential and characteristic elements, so that they can reproduce it; here: resulting from the granting of the patent in the United States), but as a result of the performance of acts of marketing and commercialization of the material for multiplying the variety. The fact that a new plant variety has been subject to trials or submitted for entry in an official register cannot be invoked against the breeder or his successor in title for the purposes of denying patent protection. The annual term established for the exercise of the priority right with reference to the application for a patent for plant varieties is expressly defined as “peremptory” by Art. 3 of Presidential Decree No. 974 of 1975, and failure to observe it prevents the applicant from linking the new application to the original one, thus excluding any possibility of backdating the novelty assessment to the time of the first application, and thus imposing the novelty assessment at the date of the application in Italy, without the patent granted abroad being of any importance. Such, however, does not prevent the patent from being granted in Italy, since novelty must be assessed on the basis of the criteria mentioned above.