In 1991 the International Convention for Protection of New Varieties of Plants was revised by a diplomatic conference in Geneva. The revised text came into effect on April 24, 1998 following ratification by the minimum number of states required. The revised text is therefore now in effect between: Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The major differences between the revised text and the previous one are a requirement that after a transitional period protection will have to be available for all species of plants (the former version made protection mandatory only for thirteen specified genera of plants); an extension of protection to harvested material of the protected variety (subject to certain exclusions) and to varieties "essentially derived" from protected varieties and removal of the old requirement that member states had to opt between patent protection and plant variety protection for plants of "one and the same botanical genus or species".