Plant Varieties and Seeds Act 1964

20 Index of names of plant varieties

(1) The Ministers may in accordance with this section prepare an index of names of plant varieties for use in connection with the sale of seeds of those varieties (in this Part of this Act referred to as " the Index ").

(2) The Index shall be compiled in sections, and each section shall define the class of plant varieties to which it relates in such terms as to make it possible to determine whether any plant variety belongs to the class or not, irrespective of whether that variety is for the time being in the Index.

(3) Different sections of the Index may be prepared, and may come into force, at different times.

(4) Notice of the coming into force of a section of the Index, and of all additions, corrections and erasures in a section of the Index after it has come into force, shall be published by the Ministers in the gazette to be issued under Part IV of this Act, and in such other manner as appears to the Ministers to be appropriate for ensuring that persons particularly concerned with the Index, or with the class of plant varieties to which the section of the Index relates, have their attention drawn to it.

(5) After a section of the Index has come into force any person who in selling seed of a plant variety for which a name is given in that section of the Index, or in offering or exposing for sale any such seed, uses some name not given in the Index for that plant variety, being a name which serves or is intended by him to serve to distinguish the seed from seed of other plant varieties within the class to which the section relates, shall be guilty of an offence under this section.

(6) The Ministers may for the purposes of this section establish, or arrange for the establishment of, a reference collection of plant material.

(7) Schedule 5 to this Act shall have effect as to the procedure for compiling the Index and the other matters there mentioned.

(8) In this and the three next following sections, and in Schedule 5 to this Act—

• " class " means a class of plant varieties to which a section of the Index relates ;

• " name " includes any designation,

and for the purposes of those provisions a plant variety shall not be regarded as distinct from another plant variety unless it is clearly distinguishable by one or more important morphological, physiological or other characteristics.