Explained | What will be the impact of PepsiCo verdict?

The story so far: The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority revoked PepsiCo India’s registration of its potato variety used to make Lays chips earlier this month, more than two years after the multinational food giant sued Gujarati farmers for allegedly infringing its rights by growing and selling its registered variety. The wider implications of the verdict for intellectual property rights in the agricultural sector are being examined by farmers’ groups as well as seed developers and industrial agriculture companies, both international and Indian. “This violates public interest,” it added, allowing farmers’ groups to claim that the verdict sent a strong signal to those who hold intellectual property rights for seeds that the unique rights that the PPV&FR Act provides Indian farmers are not to be transgressed. “There must be a mechanism to catch and punish those who illegally sell the variety, but enforcement is left to States and is patchy at best,” said Federation of Seed Industry of India director general Ram Kaundinya to The Hindu, pointing to the rampant spread of unauthorised and genetically modified HTBt cotton seeds as an example of this.