Abstract:

【Objective】Protection of new varieties of plants can protect the legal rights of seed breeders, promote industrialization and modernization of the seed industry, and as a result further develop agriculture and guarantee food security of the country. The paper aims at a better understanding of current status of maize seed industry in China from the aspect of intellectual property rights, by analyzing the data of maize variety protection and the effort of protection of new varieties of plants carried out on Zea mays L..【Method】The paper summarized in one table the maize variety data of protection of new varieties of plants during the last 20 years, acquired through material search, collection and data verification from sources such as variety rights notices, by statistics analysis of 9 kinds of maize variety protection. 【Result】 From 1999 to 2018, the applications for 7 570 maize varieties have been accepted for the protection of new varieties of plants and those for 3 609 maize varieties have been granted. The ratio of applications for hybrids to those for inbred lines is 1.33 to 1, yet the ratio of granted numbers is 1.88 to 1. By the end of 2018, protection of 3 060 maize varieties are in process of application, that of 2 448 already authorized, that of 901 in process of withdrawal, and that of 1 161 terminated, with an average evaluation time of 3.9 years. 1 340 units or persons filed applications, with seeds enterprises and scientific research institutes taking up 65.0% and 28.4%, respectively; 739 organizations or individuals has been granted with maize variety protection as the owner of such variety, among which, seeds enterprises and scientific research institutions take up a proportion of 59.7% and 33.9%, respectively. Beijing tops among all the provinces in the numbers of both applicators and authorization holders, while none shows in Jiangxi, Qinghai, Tibet, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.【Conclusion】Maize is the species with the largest number of applications and authorizations for protection of new varieties of plants in China. Maize varieties protection applications show, in terms of time, the trend of three distinct periods, i.e. the starting, stable and blowout periods, and the authorizations show the trend of four phases, i.e. unstable, peak, trough and steadily-increasing phases. In terms of space, it shows the trend of a majority of applicants and authorized organizations or individuals located in Northeast China, North China and the Huang-Huai-Hai region. Hybrids take up more proportion in both application and authorization, but the attention to inbred lines keeps increasing year by year. The seeds enterprises are the major applicators and authorized organizations, yet the scientific research institutions show a higher rate of granting. Generally speaking, the seed breeding units now pay more attention to maize variety protection, but the quality of varieties for application shall be further improved; the approving authorities are faced with plenty of needs for high efficiency; there is still some room for the foreign companies to improve their involvement in maize variety protection in China.

Key words: maize, protection of new varieties of plants, transaction number, variety count, variety type, variety protection status