Chinese scholar designs new animal breed law

A Chinese scholar specializing in intellectual property law has recently finished a draft of a law to protect the rights of new animal breeds, which he said would be the first of its kind in the world safeguarding animal breeders' rights and addressing food-safety issues.

Hou Yangkun, an associate professor of the law school at Beijing Institute of Technology and a visiting scholar at Stanford University, said he had studied related laws of dozens of countries and international conventions since 2006 before finishing the 54,000-Chinese-character law last month after 128 revisions.

Since the world's first law on the rights of plant breeders — Plant Breeder's Decree — went into effect in 1941 in the Netherlands, not much attention has been put on new animal breeds worldwide, said Hou.

"New animal breeds have been in wide existence in our life. Most of the meat, fish, eggs and milk that people eat are products of artificial breeding," he said. "It's necessary to provide legal protection for the rights of a new animal breed, just like literary or artistic creation, to encourage innovation."

He said he designed eight categories of rights in the draft, such as the right of breed denomination and the right of animal breeds to be modified. The draft, at the same time, also stipulates 12 criteria for breeders to apply for a new breed, such as stability, population-quantity standard and safety of the breed.

"Because of the society's development and increasing demand, the cultured animals have been gradually replaced by the artificially bred animals. So there's a need to regulate the animal breeding sector to ensure food safety," Hou said.

First, the new breed can't carry genetic disease or threaten humans and other animals nor the country's genetic resources and biodiversity directly or indirectly.

When rearing the animals, the breeders also are prohibited from using additives, hormones, drugs or chemicals that may harm humans. To respect animals' life, certain cruel methods are forbidden to boost production, such as lighting at night or heating in winter.

To protect consumers' rights, the draft also stipulates that consumers can sue the breeders if they are found to have used forbidden additives or chemicals when raising the animals or processing the meat. Consumers in such cases can claim at least 50,000 yuan ($7,439) in compensation, according to the law.

"Some of the issues are currently not backed by laws," said Hou. "So far, there's no law so comprehensive to regulate all stages from breeding to rearing, and from production and sales, and no laws provide protection to the rights of breeders, new breed-related food safety, biodiversity, animal ethics and consumers' rights."

Hou said scholars of intellectual property law were tended to focus more attention on patent, trademark or copyright, but the introduction of the law on the new animal breed rights would be "a trend of the society".

He said he had drafted a legislation proposal for China's legislature and will translate it into English.