1554
PUBLIC LAW 91-577-DEC. 24, 1970
[84 STAT.
Chapter 10.—OWNERSHIP A N D ASSIGNMENT Sec. 101. Ownership and Assignment. (a) Subject to the provisions of this title, plant variety protection shall have the attributes of personal property. (b) Applications for certificates of plant variety protection, or any interest in a variety, shall be assignable by an instrument in writing. The owner may in like manner license or grant and convey an exclusive right to use of the variety in the whole or any specified part of the United States. (c) A certificate of acknowledgment under the hand and official seal of a person authorized to administer oaths within the United States, or in a foreign country, of a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States or an officer authorized to administer oaths whose authority is proved by a certificate of a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States, shall be prima facie evidence of the execution of an assignment, grant, license, or conveyance of plant variety protection or application for plant variety protection. (d) An assignment, grant, conveyance or license shall be void as against any subsequent purchaser or mortagee for a valuable consideration, without notice, unless it, or an acknowledgment thereof by the person giving such encumbrance that there is such encumbrance, is filed for recording in the Plant Variety Protection Office within one month from its date or at least one month prior to the date of such subsequent purchase or mortgage. Sec. 102. Ownership During Testing. An owner who, with notice that release is for testing only, releases possession of seed or other sexually reproducible plant material for testing retains ownership with respect thereto; and any diversion from authorized testing, or any unauthorized retention, of such material by anyone who has knowledge that it is under such notice, or who is chargeable with notice, is prohibited, and violates the property rights of the owner. Anyone receiving the material tagged or labeled with the notice is chargeable with the notice. The owner is entitled to remedy and redress in a civil action hereunder. No remedy available by State or local law is hereby excluded. No such notice shall be used, or if used be effective, when the owner has made identical sexually reproducible plant material available to the public, as by sale thereof. Chapter 11.—INFRINGEMENT OF PLANT VARIETY PROTECTION Sec. 111. Infringement of Plant Variety Protection. Except as otherwise provided in this title, it shall be an infringement of the rights of the owner of a novel variety to perform without authority, any of the following acts in the United States, or in commerce which can be regulated by Congress or affecting such commerce, prior to expiration of the right to plant variety protection but after either the issue of the certificate or the distribution of a novel plant variety with the notice under section 127: (1) sell the novel variety, or oflfer it or expose it for sale, deliver it, ship it, consign it, exchange it, or solicit an offer to buy it, or any otner transfer of title or possession of it; (2) import the novel variety into, or export it from, the United States;
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