Italy has enacted a New Plant Variety Law which came into effect on March 30, 1999 and is consistent with the Revised International Convention on New Plant Varieties (U.P.O.V., see our March 1999 Newsletter (N.S. 190)). The new law removes plant variety protection from the scope of the patent law and makes this the subject of a separate type of intellectual property right. Protection is available for all plant species with protection normally running for a period of twenty years from grant but for thirty years in the case of woody materials.