The National Cattle Breeding Centre (NCBC) has said that it is totally confident in the new intellectual property (IP) rights introduced by AI companies in that they are "legally robust and defendable".

As supplier of bulls to both Munster Bovine and Progressive Genetics, NCBC said that it crafted the IP approach for both companies with the assistance of IP professionals which it engaged to advise on the process.

"Our advice is very clear, AI companies possess intellectual property based on the work they do on identifying, testing and confirming high genetic merit AI sires.

"This involves knowledge, skills, procedures and data unique to the AI companies. Secondly, AI companies also own ‘cattle semen rights’ which is another form of IP.

"Both of these elements are aspects of an AI company’s business that have IP relevance which an AI company is perfectly entitled to protect," a spokesperson for NCBC said.

NCBC’s approach to IP as well as the IP provisions included in the Munster Bovine and Progressive Genetics terms of use agreements were peer reviewed by several legal advisers with IP expertise, they said.

Meanwhile, dairy editor Aidan Brennan writes this week that while the impact of the new intellectual property rights will have a relatively small impact this year, it will have long term implications.

Farmers will have to make up their minds if they are going to sign the terms or not over the next few weeks.

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IP rights to have long-term implications