International trends in plant patents and plant breeder's rights

We describe historical reasons that have lead to the current legal options for the protection of plant innovations (both biotechnological and "traditional" breeding inventions): the Plant Variety Right and the Invention Patent. We have briefly summarized the standpoint of several multilateral international rules approaching this issue: the TRIPS Agreement concluded in the context of the World Trade Organization, which deals with all kinds of protection of industrial-intellectual property, the 1973 Munich Convention on the European Patent, the 1991 UPOV Convention, and the Council Regulation (EC) 2100/94 on Community Plant Variety Rights. Finally, we study the current legal trends intended to unify plant protection criteria: The 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention and the Proposal for a Community Directive on the Legal Protection of Biotechnological Inventions.