Africa: Plant breeders’ rights in Tanzania

Managing IP is part of Legal Benchmarking Limited, 1-2 Paris Gardens, London, SE1 8ND

Copyright © Legal Benchmarking Limited and its affiliated companies 2025

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

Africa: Plant breeders’ rights in Tanzania

tanzania-plant-breeders-min-final.jpg

Tanzania is a United Republic comprising of Mainland Tanganyika and the island of Zanzibar. Although Tanganyika and Zanzibar are considered a United Republic, no unified Industrial Property Law has been enacted. Tanzania and Zanzibar thus had different laws for plant breeders' rights (PBRs), also known as plant variety protection. PBRs are a sui generis system of IP rights designed specifically to protect new varieties of plants.

PBR protection has been available on mainland Tanganyika since 2004, in terms of the Tanzanian (mainland) Plant Breeders' Rights Law (2002) (repealed Tanzania Act). This Law was replaced by the United Republic of Tanzania Plant Breeders' Rights Act (2012) (new Tanzania Act), which came into force on June 1 2013. PBR protection has more recently become available in Zanzibar on January 2 2015, by the enactment of the Zanzibar Plant Breeders' Rights Act (2014) (The Zanzibar Act). Prior to this date PBR protection was not available in Zanzibar.

It is interesting to note that the two acts mimic one another with the vast majority of the Zanzibar Act reading the same as that of the new Tanzania Act. Certain amendments made to the new Tanzania Act and the careful drafting of the Zanzibar Act allow the PBRs granted in either Tanzania or Zanzibar to be enforced in both territories. This paved the way for The United Republic of Tanzania accession to the 1991 Act of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV 1991) on October 22 2015, which was entered into force on November 22 2015.

The United Republic of Tanzania is among the 22 African countries that are members of UPOV, with Kenya recently acceding to UPOV 1991. Even more recently, Egypt has received approval from its cabinet to join UPOV.

mahomed.jpg

Waheed Mahomed


Spoor & Fisher Pretoria

Building No. 13 

Highgrove Office Park 

Oak Avenue 

Centurion 

Pretoria, 0157 

Republic of South Africa 

Tel: +27 12 676 1111

Fax: +27 12 676 1100 

info@spoor.co.uk

www.spoor.com

more from across site and SHARED ros bottom lb

More from across our site

IP STARS, Managing IP’s accreditation title, reveals its latest rankings for patent work, including which firms are moving up
Leaders at US law firms explain what attorneys can learn from AI cases involving Meta and Anthropic, and why the outcomes could guide litigation strategies
Attorneys reveal the trademark and copyright trends they’ve noticed within the first half of 2025
Senior leaders at TE Connectivity and Clarivate explain how they see the future of innovation
A new action filed by Nokia against Asus and a landmark ruling on counterfeits by South Africa’s Supreme Court were also among the top talking points
Counsel explain how they’re navigating patent prosecution matters and highlight key takeaways from Federal Circuit cases
A partner who joined Fenwick alongside two others explains what drew her to the firm and her hopes for growth in Boston
The England and Wales High Court has granted Kirkland & Ellis client Samsung interim declaratory relief in its ongoing FRAND dispute with ZTE
A UDRP decision that found in favour of a small business in a domain name dispute could encourage more businesses to take a stand in ‘David v Goliath’ cases
In Iconix v Dream Pairs, the Supreme Court said the Court of Appeal was wrong to interfere with an earlier ruling, prompting questions about the appeal court’s remit
Gift this article