After a long dispute, the rights of the Moroccan variety Nadorcott, having been wrongly attacked several times, are confirmed by the highest European authority for the protection of plant varieties.
Indeed, the Board of Appeal of the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) rejected (by its decision of January 25, 2023) the appeal of Eurosemillas (Spanish company specializing in the sale of seeds and representing the University of California Riverside (UCR)), thus confirming the decision of the CPVO and the full validity of the Community plant variety right of the Moroccan variety Nadorcott.
In a statement, Nadorcott says the decision recalls that the Nadorcott variety has already been reviewed three times and “ that after all these exhaustive and complex analyses, the CPVO confirmed the validity of the breeder’s right granted to Nadorcott (item 37).
Similarly, the Board of Appeal considers that Eurosemillas ” provided no evidence, not even a shred of information to support his claim » additional investigation of the case (point 56).
The decision also deals with the aspects relating to the exploitation of Nadorcott in the United States, specifying that the plant material sent by the breeder to the UCR was delivered for exclusively and purely research purposes, as it appears of all the documents provided by the parties (paragraphs 138-147), and that in addition the Moroccan breeder never gave his consent either to the improvement of his original variety or to the commercial exploitation of the material plant from Nadorcott delivered for research purposes (paragraph 170), specifies the same source.
As the losing party, Eurosemillas was ordered to pay the costs of the proceedings, Nadorcott points out, noting that this decision allows the rights holders of the variety to pursue the defense of authorized producers in all countries and markets where Nadorcott is protected. and to claim their rights violated since the beginning of the discovery of the variety.