The Regulation on Protecting New Plant Variety which came into force in 1999 conferred the duties upon various levels of the agriculture administrations of finding out and punishing the infringement on the plant variety right and the pirated plant variety. It is reported that the agriculture administrations in China have totally inspected 299 infringement cases and 564 pirate cases by the end of 2004, which effectively promoted the development of the seed industry meanwhile protected the lawful interests of the parties.
