ASTA’s Intellectual Property Rights Committee welcomes a panel of USPTO’s IP attachés, who will share the latest international IP issues arising in their assigned regions around the world. The panel will cover a wide range of topics relevant to the IPR protection of seeds, including Plant Breeders Rights (PBR)/Plant Variety Protection (PVP), Patents, Trade Secrets, Contracts, and Trademarks. Based at U.S. embassies or consulates overseas, IP attachés are U.S. diplomats who work to improve IP systems abroad using their extensive IP knowledge and experience. Attaches from China, the EU, the Middle East and North Africa, Mexico, South East Asia will participate in the panel.
Additionally, there will be a report from the joint effort of the ASTA Molecular Marker Working Group and the US PVP Office on the use of soybean molecular markers during the PVP application process.