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Morocco is member of the UPOV Convention and as per the TRIPS Agreement that underlines - under the ADPIC agreement - the obligation of protecting intellectual property rights of inventors including breeders, Morocco has adopted Law 9-94 on the protection of plant varieties which was promulgated by the Royal decree No 1.96.255 issued on January 21st, 1997.
According to the Moroccan national law, the protection concerns varieties belonging to a list of kinds and species determined by the Ministry of Agriculture. This decision determines as well, for every specie, the duration of the protection and the elements concerned by the right of the breeder. Currently, several species are protectable in Morocco, and are divided in three categories:
Group A: Cereals, vegetables, fodder cultures, industrial cultures, flora and ornamental species, potatoes and strawberry plants.
Group B: Arboricultural and vine species
Group C: Other plant variety plants.
The deadline for filing a plant variety application is SIX YEARS (for category B) and FOUR YEARS (for Categories A & C) from the first commercialization of the varieties outside Morocco and ONE YEAR from the first commercialization in Morocco for arboricultural and vine species.
Service de Controle des Semences et Plants is the Authority in charge of the protection of plant variety rights in Morocco which recommend the variety to be already protected abroad, in order to facilitate the national procedures.
Kindly note that according to the Moroccan PVP law, plant materials should be submitted to the Moroccan PVP office. However, before you send any plant materials, we recommend to be informed of the same in order to obtain an authorization from the Administration of Quality Control in charge of the importation of plants in Morocco.
Kindly note that once the application for the protection of a plant variety is filed before the Moroccan PVP office, it is published in the official bulletin and there are three months as of the publication date for any interested party to present a written observation against the published plant, and in case no claim was filed against the same it takes five to six months for the certificate to be issued.
Concerning the commercialization of the plant variety, it is necessary that the plant is protected in order to obtain the required authorization for importing and commercializing the same in the Moroccan territory.
Kindly note that ALL plant varieties included in the species protectable in Morocco CAN NOT BE FILED AS CONVENTION APPLICATIONS (under the normal patent procedures with the Moroccan Patent Office). Thus, claims directed to methods of breeding plants cannot be protected as patents BUT rather as plant varieties with Service de Controle des Semences et Plants.
Plant variety protection term is 20-30 years (upon renewal) depending on the plant category. Annuities are due upon grant (acceptance) and should be paid before the due date, otherwise, it will be subject to cancellation.