Essentially Derived Varieties in Ornamentals

The concept of Essentially derived varieties (EDVs) was introduced in the UPOV 1991 act to protect the interests of the breeder of the initial variety. When a variety is considered as an EDV, authorisation for commercial exploitation is needed from the breeder of the initial variety. There is considerable debate going on about which approaches to use for determining essential derivation and also which thresh-olds should be used in the different plant species. For determining whether a variety should be considered essentially derived from an existing variety two conceptually different approaches can be taken. The first one is based on genetic conformity, the second is more a forensic approach. For the implementation of the EDV concept using the conformity approach it is important that similarities between unrelated varieties can clearly be separated from essentially derived varieties. In the forensic approach the high genetic similarity between original variety and mutant is taken as a starting point. The basic idea is to calculate the probability that a second, putatively derived, variety would have a profile identical to the initial variety, given an independent breeding history. Both approaches will be illustrated and ways to implement the EDV concept will be discussed