31Special provisions relating to application for registration from citizens of convention countries

(1) With a view to the fulfilment of a treaty, convention or arrangement with any country outside India which affords to citizens of India similar privileges as granted to its own citizens, the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, declare such country to be a convention country for the purposes of this Act.

(2) Where a person has made an application for the granting of a breeder's right to a variety or for entering such variety in the official register of varieties in a convention country and that person, or any person entitled to make application on his behalf under section 14 or section 23, makes an application for the registration of such variety in India within twelve months after the date on which the application was made in the convention country, such variety shall, if registered under this Act, be registered as of the date on which the application was made in the convention country and that date shall be deemed for the purposes of this Act to be the date of registration.

(3) Where applications have been made for granting of a breeder's right to a variety, or for entering such variety in the official register of varieties in two or more convention countries, the period of twelve months referred to in sub-section (2) shall be reckoned from the date on which the earlier or earliest of those applications were made.

(4) Nothing in this Act shall entitle the breeder of a registered variety to infringement of rights other than protected under this Act which took place prior to the date of application of registration under this Act.