1.An application for a Community plant variety right shall be filed at the choice of the applicant:
(a)at the Office directly; or
(b)at one of the sub-offices or national agencies, established or entrusted, pursuant to Article 30 (4), subject to the applicant forwarding an information on this filing to the Office directly within two weeks after filing.
Details on the manner in which the information referred to in (b) above must be forwarded, may be laid down in the implementing rules pursuant to Article 114. The omission of forwarding information on an application to the Office pursuant to (b) above, does not affect the validity of the application if the application has reached the Office within one month after filing at the sub-office or national agency.
2.Where the application is filed at one of the national agencies referred to in paragraph 1 (b), the national agency shall take all steps to forward the application to the Office within two weeks after filing. National agencies may charge the applicant a fee which shall not exceed the administrative costs of receiving and forwarding the application.
1.The application for a Community plant variety right must contain at least the following:
(a)a request for the grant of a Community plant variety right;
(b)identification of the botanical taxon;
(c)information identifying the applicant or, where appropriate, the joint applicants;
(d)the name of the breeder and an assurance that, to the best of the applicants knowledge, no further persons have been involved in the breeding, or discovery and development, of the variety; if the applicant is not the breeder, or not the only breeder, he shall provide the relevant documentary evidence as to how the entitlement to the Community plant variety right came into his possession;
(e)a provisional designation for the variety;
(f)a technical description of the variety;
(g)the geographic origin of the variety;
(h)the credentials of any procedural representative;
(i)details of any previous commercialization of the variety;
(j)details of any other application made in respect of the variety.
2.Details of the conditions referred to in paragraph 1, including the provision of further information, may be laid down in the implementing rules pursuant to Article 114.
3.An application shall propose a variety denomination which may accompany the application.
The date of application for a Community plant variety right shall be the date on which a valid application was received by the Office pursuant to Article 49 (1) (a) or by a sub-office or national agency pursuant to Article 49 (1) (b), provided it complies with Article 50 (1) and subject to payment of the fees due pursuant to Article 83 within a time limit specified by the Office.
1.The right of priority of an application shall be determined by the date of receipt of the application. Where applications have the same date of application, the priorities thereof shall be determined according to the order in which they were received, if this can be established. Otherwise they shall have the same priority.
2.If the applicant or his predecessor in title has already applied for a property right for the variety in a Member State or in a Member of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, and the date of application is within 12 months of the filing of the earlier application, the applicant shall enjoy a right of priority for the earlier application as regards the application for the Community plant variety right, provided the earlier application still exists on the date of application.
3.The right of priority shall have the effect that the date on which the earlier application was filed shall count as the date of application for the Community plant variety right for the purposes of Articles 7, 10 and 11.
[F14. Paragraphs 2 and 3 shall also apply in respect of earlier applications that were filed in another State.]
5.Any claim for a right of priority earlier than that provided for in paragraph 2 shall lapse if the applicant does not submit to the Office within three months of the date of application copies of the earlier application that have been certified by the authorities responsible for such application. If the earlier application has not been made in one of the official languages of the European Communities, the Office may require, in addition, a translation of the earlier application in one of these languages.