2011 CIOPORA Chronicle - the 50th Anniversary Edition

Birthday greetings
CIOPORA Germany & Union Fleurs
offers warm congratulations
The importance of national plant breeders’ rights diminishes in favor of European and
world wide accepted titles and patents.
To protect the intellectual property rights of plant breeders in this situation, a competent
and strong organisation is a prerequisite. In the past 50 years CIOPORA worked hard to
meet these expectations and achieved remarkable results and success.
The 58 members of CIOPORA Germany, that celebrated its 25th anniversary only
some weeks ago, congratulate her ‘Mother CIOPORA’ by expressing a warm-hearted
"Thank you!!!"
We as CIOPORA Germany received a lot of understanding and helpful promotion and
hope that CIOPORA will continue to spend us these excellent benefits. As ‘children’ we
promise to proceed being an open minded and confident clientele.
We do hope that in the future the very open discussion of our particular national affairs
and interest will meet the same understanding and support of the mother as in the past.
With this in mind we wish an encouraging celebration of the 50th anniversary and all
the best for the next 50 years to come.
Friederike von Rundstedt
Chairwoman of CIOPORA Germany
CIOPORA Deutschland e.V.
Gemeinschaft der Züchter vegetativ vermehrbarer Zier- und Obstpflanzen
As we look back on the past fifty years of horticulture business we can see
one clear and strong development, and that is the internationalization of our
industry.
Flowers are produced and consumed in ever more countries, and as a consequence,
trade between those countries increases. Our purpose as Union Fleurs
is to represent and promote the worldwide interests of the horticulture industry
and foster free trade to increase the size of the pie. One of the cornerstones of free
trade is a strong, well functioning intellectual property system to protect breeders,
growers, traders and ultimately the consumer. As we include ever more countries
in the global trade of flowers, it falls upon CIOPORA, among others to promote strong IP legislation
and legal follow-through in new producer and consumer countries.
We, as an industry, need to support this effort in several constructive ways, and inform about
what intellectual property rights are and how they should be complied with. We should use all
communication means necessary to inform about piracy, and to assist producers to comply with
regulations. One idea would be to launch a “White Certificate” for producers and traders to show
that they comply fully with breeders rights, royalty payments and so forth. This
would indicate clearly to the whole chain of distribution who is supporting the
development of our industry and who is not. The label could be displayed on websites,
emails, boxes, and so on, to show that a company is in full compliance. This
could be a step in the right direction in assisting CIOPORA in their worthy task of
promoting IP rights in old and new markets.
We, as Union Fleurs, congratulate CIOPORA on their fiftieth anniversary and
wish for another fifty years with strengthened breeders rights
John Nevado
Board member Union Fleurs