Protection of confidential supporting information about innovative pesticides
15.—(1) Where the Director-General receives an innovative pesticide application and confidential supporting information, the Director‑General, during the protected period in relation to that confidential supporting information —
(a)
must take reasonable steps to ensure that the confidential supporting information is kept confidential to the Director‑General; and
(b)
must not use the confidential supporting information for the purposes of determining whether to grant any other application.
(2) In this section and section 16, unless the context otherwise requires —
“application” means an application for registration of a pesticide under section 14;
“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-General” includes any public officer or officer of the Board or of any other statutory authority authorised under section 6 to carry out registration of pesticides under section 14;
“ingredient” includes a chemical or biological entity;
“innovative pesticide application” means in relation to an application made after 8 January 1999, an application that refers to an active ingredient —
(a)
that is an active ingredient of the pesticide to which the application relates; and
(b)
that has not, before that application is received by the Director-General, been mentioned 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-General, 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-General.