The protection under the Law shall be provided to persons who are the nationals of Republic of Turkey or natural or legal persons having their residences or offices within the territory of Republic of Turkey or those having the right to apply within the scope of the UPOV Convention.

In line with the reciprocity principle, natural and legal persons who do not meet the said requirements but are nationals of any other state that grants legal or actual protection to the nationals of Republic of Turkey shall also enjoy the same protection provided by this Law

The protection period for new varieties of plants is for 25 years after registration, or 30 years for trees, vines and potatoes from the grant of the right. Ending date of protection period shall be calculated as to run from the end of the calendar year.

The variety shall be deemed to be new if, at the date of filing of the application for a breeder's right, propagating or harvested material of the variety has not been sold or otherwise disposed of to public, by or with the consent of the breeder, for purposes of using exploitation of the variety, at home where the application has been filed earlier than one year before that date, and abroad earlier than four years or, in the case of trees or of vines, earlier than six years before the said date.

Following cases shall not affect the consideration of variety as new:

• Sales or statements that can be considered, against the holder of the right, as misuse of right,
• Sales or statements that are within the scope of a transfer contract of breeder’s right.
• Acts, on behalf of the holder, under a propagating contract of material, provided that the breeder preserves the right on propagating material and material is not exploited for production of any other variety.
• Field or laboratory trials carried out, under a contract, in order to determine the characteristics of the variety or acts related with small size product processing trials.
• Acts arising from legal procedures for biological security or from the obligations such as entering tradable varieties in the official catalogue.
• Sales or disposal to the public, for consumption and without defining the variety concerned, of residual products resulting from production of variety or of harvested material of sub-product nature, or materials resulting as the consequence of acts under paragraph (c), (d) and (e).

No. However, technical examination reports prepared by contracting states of the UPOV Convention (i.e. by CPVO) may be filed to avoid repeating the same lengthy procedure in Turkey.

A variety shall be deemed to be “distinct” if it is clearly distinguishable from any other variety whose existence is a matter of common knowledge on the date of application or on the date of priority right. A variety shall in particular be deemed to be a matter of common knowledge on the date of application provided that an application filed in any State has led to the granting of breeders right or entering the variety in the register. Common knowledge may also be determined by taking into account the commencement of variety exploitation or existence of a variety in a variety catalogue of a professional institution or inclusion in a reference collection.

A variety shall be deemed to be uniform if it is sufficiently uniform in its relevant characteristics, except those possible variations that are subject to propagation method used and be stable if its relevant characteristics remain unchanged during the repeated propagation or at the end of particular propagation cycles.

Breeder’s rights shall not extend to the following acts done:

• privately and for non-commercial purposes;
• for experimental purposes;
• for the purpose of breeding other varieties, except acts referred in Article 14 paragraph 5 of this Law.

As derogation for farmers, for the purposes of protecting and safeguarding agricultural production, farmers are authorized to use for new production, on their own holdings, the product of the harvest which they have obtained by planting propagating material of a protected variety, except hybrid and synthetic varieties, without infringing the legitimate rights of breeder, provided that it is not contrary to exclusive rights for protection of the variety (i.e. production or reproduction, conditioning for the purpose of propagation, offering for sale, selling or other marketing, exporting or importing and stocking)

The said species are:

• Cereals: Wheat “Triticum sppp”, Barley “Hordeum vulgare L.”, Red rice “Oryza sativa L.”, Oats “Avena sativa”, Rye “Secale cereale L.”, Tricale “Triticosecale”
• Grain Legumes: Common bean “Phaseolus vulgaris L.”, Chickpea milkvetch “Cicer arietinum L.”, Lentil “Lens Culinaris Medic”, Field pea “Pisum sativum L.”, Field bean “Vicia faba”.
• Fibre Plants: Lucerne “Medicago sativa L.”, Sainfoin “Onobrychis Sativa L.”, Common vetch “Vicia sativa L.”, Clover “Trifolium spp.”.
• Industrial Plants: Cotton “Gossypium spp.”, Tobacco “Nicotina tacacum L.”, Potato “Solanum tuberosum”, Rape “Brassica tuberosum L.”, Peanut “Arachic hypogaea L.”, Soybean “Glycine Max L.”.

Conditions to give effect to the said derogation shall be applied on the basis of following criteria in order to safeguard the legitimate interests of the holder of the right and of the farmer:

• There shall be no quantitative restriction of the level of the farmer's holding to the extent necessary for the requirements of the holding. Farmers’ own holding shall be considered to be any holding which the farmer actually exploits for plant growing, whether as his property or otherwise managed under his own responsibility and on his own account in particular in the case of leaseholds, or as a sharecropper.
• Only small farmers may benefit from the farmers derogation. Small farmers are those who grow maximum 92 tonnes of wheat or, in respect of those plant species, who meet comparable appropriate criteria. These farmers are not required to pay any remuneration to the holder.
• Other farmers who are not under the scope of derogation shall be required to pay a certain amount of remuneration to the holder. The level of remuneration shall be determined by an agreement between the holder and the farmer concerned.
• Persons who are farmers under the scope of derogation or process the products, are obliged to provide any information and document to the holders on their request. When necessary, the holder may ask the help of the Ministry. The Ministry, in that case, may provide, with a charge, relevant information and documents to the holder. If the Ministry refuses to provide such information and documents requested, it shall inform the holder, in writing, about the refusal decision together with the basis for refusal.

A breeder’s right shall terminate upon:

• expiry of the term of protection.
• surrender, by the holder , of the right.
• non-payment of yearly fees and additional fees, within the prescribed time-periods.

The subject matter of a breeder’s right having terminated shall become public property as from the moment when the ground for termination materializes. Such cases shall be published, by the Ministry, in the Bulletin.

The holder may surrender breeder’s right. The surrender shall have effect as of the date of entry in the Register. The holder cannot surrender his right without having the consent of the holders and licensees of rights entered in the Register. Where a third party claims the ownership of the right, surrender of right cannot be requested without the consent of the concerned third party. 

In case of non-payment of yearly fees, the ground for termination of a breeder’s right shall be deemed to materialize as of the date when the payment is due. In such a case, with the holder of right bringing evidence of force majeure for reasons of which the said fee could not be paid, the right shall be revalidated. The claim related to force majeure shall be put forward within six months as from the related publication in the bulletin. 

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