On November 15, international application platform for plant variety right was launched in Beijing, through which Chinese breeders can not only apply for plant variety rights protection with plant variety protection offices in different countries and regions but also provide convenient approaches for the introduction of foreign fine varieties. On January 2017, International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) established electronic application system of plant variety rights (PRISMA), which is utilized by 16 countries like China, Argentina etc. It is known that China issued Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Protection of New Varieties of Plants in 1997 and joined UPOV on April 23, 1999. The applications for new variety rights of plants witness a constant increase over the past 20 years. The number of applications in 2016 reached near 3,000, stably ranking the first among UPOV member states.

Source: IPR in China