(i) six years, in the case of trees and vines;
(ii) four years, in the case of other species.
(2) Novelty shall not be lost by sale or disposal to others:
(a) where it is due to an abuse committed to the detriment of the breeder or of his
successor in title or assignee;
(b) where it forms part of an agreement for the transfer of the rights in the variety;
(c) where it forms part of an agreement under which a third party has multiplied
reproductive or vegetative propagating material of the variety concerned on behalf of the
breeder or his successor in title or assignee, on condition that the multiplied material reverts to
the breeder or his successor in title or assignee and on condition that the said material is not
used for the production of another variety;
(d) where it forms part of an agreement under which a person has undertaken field tests
or laboratory trials or small-scale processing trials in order to evaluate the variety;
(e) where it forms part of the fulfilment of a statutory or regulatory obligation, in
particular concerning biological safety or the entry of varieties in an official catalogue of
varieties passed for marketing; or
(f) where it relates to harvested material that is a by-product or surplus product of the
creation of the variety or of the activities referred to under (c) to (e) of this paragraph, on
condition that the material is sold or otherwise disposed of anonymously (without variety
identification) for the purposes of consumption.
(3) Where the production of a variety requires repeated use of one or more other
varieties, the sale or disposal to others of propagating material or of harvested material of the
former variety shall constitute facts relevant to the novelty of the latter variety or varieties.
Article 6
Distinctness
(1) A variety shall be deemed distinct if it is clearly distinguishable from any other
variety whose existence is a matter of common knowledge on the filing date of the of the
application or on the priority date if any.
(2) The filing, in any country, of an application for a plant variety certificate or for
entry in a catalogue of varieties passed for marketing shall be deemed to render the variety
that is the subject of the said application a matter of common knowledge as from the
application date, provided that the application leads to the issue of a plant variety certificate or
to entry in the catalogue, as the case may be.
(3) The fact that the existence of another variety is a matter of common knowledge may
be established by various factors such as:
(a) exploitation of the variety already in progress;
(b) entry of the variety in a variety register kept by a recognized professional
association, or
(c) the inclusion of the variety in a reference collection.