Seeds and Plant Varieties rights are protected in Kenya under the Seeds and Plant Varieties Act. 

Kenya is a member of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV Convention).

Rights under the Seeds and Plant Varieties Act is granted to plant breeders who seek to protect their intellectual property. The holder of the breeders rights has exclusivity to produce or reproduce the material of the variety for commercial purposes, propagate it, offer for sale, export it or import it and to stock or any purpose of propagating the material or harvesting the material of the plant variety. 

To qualify for plant breeders rights, the plant variety must be considered to be new. A plant variety is considered to be new if at the date of filing the application the propagating material or harvested material of the plant variety has not been sold or otherwise disposed of to third parties with the consent of the breeder, for purposes of exploitation of the variety in Kenya for a period of more than one year, or outside Kenya, for a period more than six years in the case of trees or vines, or four years in the case of any other plant variety.

Kenya being a member of the UPOV convention, the plant variety will also be tested to confirm if it meets the conditions of Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability (DUS).

Plant breeder’s rights are granted for up to 25 years for trees and vines and for 20 years for all other plant varieties, from the date of the grant.