ABSTRACT
The Thai Plant Varieties Protection Act, 1999, (PVPA)1 is a sui generis system that contains three types of protections for plant varieties: (1) intellectual property protections for new plant varieties that are novel, distinct, uniform and stable; (2) intellectual property protections for local domestic varieties which are distinct, uniform and stable (DUS), but not necessarily novel; and (3) access and benefit sharing-style protections for general domestic plant varieties and wild plant varieties. Interestingly, while wild plant varieties do not have to be uniform, the Act stipulates that they must be stable and distinct.2
