Odstępstwo rolne na tle innych licencji ustawowych

Abstract

The institution of “agricultural exception” involves the legally permitted possibility of departing from the accepted system of protecting plant varieties in order to secure the interest of farmers. This institution of the law allows them to pursue their interest by using, in their own farmsteads, harvested material from a protected variety as sowing material without having to obtain the cultivator’s consent, against adequate payment or without the obligation to make any payment. If one perceives agricultural exception in such a way, its legal nature makes it enter into the wider category of statutory licences related to non-material interest. The shape of the institution makes it resemble permitted private use, and in particular permitted public use, i.e. statutory licences related to copyright. However, agricultural exception has a number of properties that make it differ from statutory licences related to industrial property or copyright. The following features make agricultural exception differ from other statutory licences: the specific fundamental nature of the public interest that agricultural exception contributes to (securing the food security of a country), the specific manner of shaping of a limited group of entities the privilege is intended for, resulting from the application of this institution of law (it relates exclusively to farmers), the specific rules related to the direct payment of fees by the entities benefiting from the rule of agricultural exception: the fees are paid directly to the cultivators who are authorised to receive them under their exclusive right to the respective varieties. All these specific features constitute arguments for considering the institution of agricultural exception as a separate statutory licence of the agricultural law.