Plant varieties as an object of forensic examination in the field of intellectual property

Abstract

Based on the analysis of expert practice and literature are formulated the basic conceptual apparatus of this type of forensics in the field of intellectual property as a «research related to plant varieties.» There were formulated the subject of expertise, the tasks, that are put before the forensic expert, the objects to be investigated in the framework of this type of examination. The subject of forensic expertise, related with plant varieties are evidence (facts of the case) about the properties, attributes, patterns of establishment, operation and use of plant varieties that are relevant to juridical proceedings, which are established on the basis of special knowledge of the expert, including collection of data about the laws of growth and evolution plants, as well as methods for creating the varieties. The object of expert research is a plant variety that can be materialized in the following information carriers: in the seeds and the planting material of a certain type (direct media of plant varieties) in the data that contain materials of the case. Also, the object of expertise is included comparative samples and other materials, that contain information about the subject of expertise. The main tasks of the forensic expertise of plant varieties are: to determine does the investigated object, the characteristics of intellectual property; determine whether the variety of plant accord to the criteria of novelty, criteria of distinctness, uniformity and stability, the research of identification features of vegetative and generative organs of plants varieties (its code formula) and researching object, the establishment of the similarity the name of plant varieties with the name of a different variety. For forensic expertise of plant varieties the most characteristic are identification and diagnostic tasks for expert. Meanwhile, at research of such objects along with the identification and diagnostic tasks can be solved also classification tasks and situational tasks. It should also be noted that some of the tasks of this type of forensics can be mixed, for example, the finding the fact of exploitation of the variety (diagnostic problem) provides for the objective of identifying individual characteristic of the complex characteristics of the variety and its identification.