ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a detailed analysis of the influence of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) Convention model of plant breeders’ rights in several mainland Southeast Asian countries, namely Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Thailand. It discusses how the governments of these three countries developed innovative sui generis laws that are distinct from the plant breeders’ rights model that the UPOV Convention embodies. The book offers a critical assessment of the sui generis intellectual property law for plant varieties that has received the most scholarly attention to date. It explores a number of issues related to the protection of ‘local domestic,’ ‘general domestic,’ and ‘wild’ plant varieties in Thailand. The book also explores how and why the concept of the ‘farmers’ variety’ evolved as a legal construct.
