신품종 중첩적 보호의 법적 과제

Korea is being considered as one of the countries which market size of seed is small. In addition, Korea is evaluated as a country which have minus trade balance of seed for the long time. Therefore, it is very urgent to make the promoting legal system for the seed development. For example, France and Netherland are similar to Korea in terms of trade balance and country quantity. But there is a big gap in quality of seed trade balance between Korea and two countries. In 2016, Korea recorded minus 48 milion dollar in seed international trade, but France made plus 961 milion dollars and Netherland, plus 993 milion dollars. That means, if Korea make a good legal system for the seed development, it could have a positive potential to be a developed country in terms of seed trade balance. Korea have legal system which new plant varieties can be protected by the plant variety protection act and patent act at the same time. It means that rights are overlaped between plant variety protection and patent. Therefore, there could occur legal disputes in terms of the relationship between plant variety right and patent. Nevertherless, both acts do not define the use and conflict of those rights clearly. However, article 98 of the Korea's patent act regulates the use of patented invention and conflicts with another person’s intellectual property rights such as patent, utility model right, design right and trade mark. But it does not include plant variety right. In order to make the problem clearly, it could be the best solution to make revisions of the Plant Variety Act and the Patent Act. This research suggests practical revision of article 98 patent act, taking the connection with plant variety right into consideration. In addition, revision of article 67 plant variety protection act, too.