Paraguay's Senate Postpones the Agricultural Biotechnology Royalties Bill: Patent Law Amendment Goes to Working Tables
A committee news item published on the Paraguayan Senate's website on 23 September reports that the Industry and Commerce Committee, chaired by Senator Luis Pettengill, and the Science, Technology, Innovation and Future Committee, chaired by Senator Patrick Kemper, met jointly that day and resolved to postpone, for further analysis, the bill establishing the conditions for collecting agricultural biotechnology royalties and amending Law No. 1630/00 on Patents of Invention. Pettengill said the committees plan to convene working tables with the sectors involved to analyse the proposals and possible amendments before the bill goes to the floor of the Senate for debate and a vote.
The bill, led by Senator Colym Soroka and co-signed by other senators, seeks to set conditions for royalties arising from the use of agricultural biotechnology so as to strengthen transparency, contractual balance and legal certainty; the meeting was attended by the National Directorate of Intellectual Property (DINAPI), the plant health and seed authority SENAVE, the agricultural technology institute IPTA, the production federation FEPRINCO, the Rural Association (ARP), the Industrial Union (UIP), the Paraguayan-American Chamber of Commerce, the Paraguayan Association of Plant Breeders and the Paraguayan-German Chamber of Commerce.
According to ABC Color on 21 September, DINAPI's report to the Senate accepts that the bill's aim of more transparent and balanced relations between patent holders and farmers is legitimate, but finds serious technical deficiencies, imprecise terminology and drafting flaws, and incompatibility with the Constitution, domestic law and the international treaties Paraguay has ratified, chiefly the TRIPS Agreement and the Paris Convention; DINAPI also notes that a technology's loss of efficacy over time is not a legal ground for the expiry or nullity of a patent, so there is no basis for suspending royalties on a valid patent.
FEPRINCO wrote to Senate President Basilio Núñez on 22 September asking that the bill not be passed, arguing that it could conflict with international commitments, weaken legal certainty and affect investment and access to technology; the Paraguayan-American Chamber and others also oppose the current text. The bill remains at committee stage and no provision is in force.
What makes the bill worth watching is not that a legislature is debating another proposal but that it puts an entire chain of intellectual property relationships on the table: patent validity, the use of agricultural biotechnology, royalties, technology validation, contract transparency and the allocation of interests between patent holders and farmers.
DINAPI's report shows the authority's bottom line, that agricultural policy cannot rewrite the rules on patent validity, while the committees' choice to postpone and open working tables signals that the balance between royalty transparency and farmer protection will be sought within the patent law framework.
J&C recommends that holders of agricultural biotechnology patents or licensing businesses in Paraguay put this bill on their watch list: check whether the royalty base, technology validation and disclosure clauses in existing licences would withstand scrutiny for transparency and contractual balance; keep evidence of patent validity and technology efficacy to answer claims that royalties are not due because a trait is obsolete; follow the working tables and the amended text without changing current licences before a vote.
Source: www.senado.gov.py | www.abc.com.py
