The Plant Variety Rights Act 1987 provides that grantees shall have the exclusive right to produce for sale, and to sell reproductive material of the variety concerned; to propagate the variety for the purposes of the commercial production of fruit, flowers, or other products of that variety (if that variety is a plant of a type specified by the Governor General by Order in Council); to authorise any other person or persons to do any of the things described above; and to assign, mortgage or otherwise dispose of the grant in respect of that variety.
The Act also provides that where there is imported into New Zealand any reproductive material of a protected variety, any propagation, sale or use of that material, as reproductive material and without the authority of the grantee concerned, constitutes an infringement of the rights of that grantee.
The importation into New Zealand from a country that is not a UPOV country, of produce of a protected variety, or from a UPOV country of produce of a protected variety in respect of which, under the law of that country, it is not possible to make the equivalent of a grant without the consent of a grantee, also constitutes an infringement of the rights of the grantee.
In addition, the sale under the denomination of a protected variety of reproductive material of some other variety constitutes an infringement of the rights of the grantee of that protected variety, unless the groups of plants to which those varieties belong are internationally recognised as being distinct for the purposes of denomination.