JUDGMENT :

I.P. MUKERJI, J.

1. As all the relevant papers are before us, we propose to dispose of the appeal and the stay application by this common judgment and order, dispensing with all formalities.

2. The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 (PPVFR Act) is a relatively new Act. Sections 2 to 13, 95, 96 and 97 came into force on 11th November, 2005 whereas Sections 1 and 14 to 94 came into force on 19th October, 2006. The preamble to the Act explains its purpose, inter-alia, to protect “plant varieties, the rights of farmers and plant breeders and encourage development of new varieties of plants.” Implementation of the Act would also inter-alia, result in high quality seeds and “planting materials to the farmers.”

3. This Act recognizes grant of a kind of ownership rights or patent to producers of unique and distinctive varieties of plants and seeds from which they germinate. The producer or breeder as he is described in this Act of this new variety has the exclusive right to produce and deal with it, without interference from any rival. Obviously, to identify the unique product, a name has to be given to it. In our case, the variety involved is PAN 804. The breeder who enjoys the registration generally also obtains registration of a trade mark. The use of the trademark is very secondary. What is of utmost importance is registration of the variety under the PPVFR Act. This is for the reason that suppose the respondents use the same mark PAN 804 but the variety contained in the packet bearing the mark is dissimilar to the product of the appellant and is otherwise unique and distinctive, the respondents would be allowed to produce and deal with the product, irrespective of whether they are allowed to use the mark. Conversely, even if the marks of the varieties are dissimilar but the products are similar of which the appellant has registration, the respondent would not be allowed to market it, with or without the mark.

4. Section 14 of the said Act, inter-alia, provides for an application to be made to the Registrar for registration of any variety of genera or species as specified under sub-section 2 of Section 29. Sub-section 2 of Section 29 authorizes the Central Government by notification in the Official Gazette to specify the genera or species for the purpose of registration of varieties other than extant varieties and farmers’ varieties under the Act. Section 14 also conceives of an application before the Registrar for registration of extant and farmers’ varieties.

5. Under Section 2(c) “breeder” has been defined as one which has bred, evolved or developed any variety.

6. In Section 2(r) “propagating material” is defined as:

2(r) “Propagating material” means any plant or its component or part thereof including an intended seed or seed which is capable of, or suitable for, regeneration into a plant.

‘Variety’ is defined in Section 2(za) of the said Act in the following manner:

“(za) “variety” means a plant grouping except micro organism within a single botanical taxon of the lowest known rank, which can be:

(i) defined by the expression of the characteristics resulting from a given genotype of that plant grouping.

(ii) distinguished from any other plant grouping by expression of at least one of the said characteristics.

(iii) considered as a unit with regard to its suitability for being propagated, which remains unchanged after such propagation, and includes propagating material of such variety, extant variety, transgenic variety, farmers’ variety and essentially derived variety.”

7. Section 17 lays down that every application should assign a single and distinct denomination to the variety of which registration is sought.

8. Section 18 provides that every such application for registration under Section 14 shall be inter-alia with respect to a variety accompanied by such information, documents, statements, declarations as are provided in that section.

9. Under Section 19 along with the application for registration, t