Federal Act
on Patents for Inventions
(Patents Act, PatA)¹

¹ When a plant vari­ety right may not be claimed or used without in­fringing an earli­er-gran­ted pat­ent, the plant breed­er or the own­er of the plant vari­ety has the right to a non-ex­clus­ive li­cence to the ex­tent re­quired to ob­tain and use his plant vari­ety right, provided that the plant vari­ety rep­res­ents an im­port­ant ad­vance of con­sid­er­able eco­nom­ic sig­ni­fic­ance in com­par­is­on to the pat­ent-pro­tec­ted in­ven­tion. For vari­et­ies for ag­ri­cul­ture and food, the cri­ter­ia un­der the Seed Or­din­ance of 7 Decem­ber 1998⁸⁵ serve as a ref­er­ence point.

² The pro­pri­et­or of the pat­ent may make the grant of a li­cence con­di­tion­al on the own­er of the plant vari­ety grant­ing him a li­cence to use his plant vari­ety right in re­turn.