Protection of confidential supporting information about innovative pesticides
15A.—(1) Where the Director receives, or has received not more than 5 years before the commencement of the Control of Plants (Amendment) Act 1998, an innovative pesticide application and confidential supporting information, the Director, during the protected period in relation to that confidential supporting information —
(a)
shall take reasonable steps to ensure that the confidential supporting information is kept confidential to the Director; and
(b)
shall not use the confidential supporting information for the purposes of determining whether to grant any other application.
(2) For the purposes of this section and section 15B, unless the context otherwise requires —
“application” means an application for registration of a pesticide under section 15;
“confidential information” includes —
(a)
trade secrets; and
(b)
information that has commercial value that would be, or would be likely to be, diminished by disclosure;
“confidential supporting information” means confidential information given —
(a)
in, or in relation to, an innovative pesticide application; and
(b)
about the pesticide that is or was, as the case may be, the subject of that application;
“Director” includes any public officer authorised under section 5A to carry out registration of pesticides under section 15;
“ingredient” includes a chemical or biological entity;
“innovative pesticide application” means —
(a)
in relation to an application made after the commencement of the Control of Plants (Amendment) Act 1998, an application that refers to an active ingredient —
(i)
that is an active ingredient of the pesticide to which the application relates; and
(ii)
that has not, before that application is received by the Director, been referred to in any other application as an active ingredient of the pesticide; and
(b)
in relation to an application made before the commencement of the Control of Plants (Amendment) Act 1998, an application that referred to an active ingredient —
(i)
that is or was, as the case may be, an active ingredient of the pesticide to which the application related; and
(ii)
that had not, before the application was received by the Director, been referred to in any other application as an active ingredient of the pesticide;
“protected period”, in relation to confidential supporting information relating to an innovative pesticide application received by the Director, means a period of 5 years from the date the innovative pesticide application is or was, as the case may be, received by the Director.