Senator Colym Soroka asked the Paraguayan Senate to debate within three weeks a proposal to make agricultural patent contracts more transparent. The initiative would also cap private charges on soybean seeds and allocate part of the revenue to public research and rural roads.
During an extraordinary session, Soroka said that between US$150 million and US$200 million leaves the country each year in royalties for biotechnology patents applied to soybeans. According to the legislator's presentation, these payments do not produce a direct return in investment or infrastructure in producing regions. The figure was presented as an estimate, without public details on its methodology in the material released.
The bill would require every contract, invoice or commercial settlement charging intellectual-property rights to state the registration number issued by the National Directorate of Intellectual Property (DINAPI), Paraguay's government agency responsible for intellectual property, and the patent's expiration date. Documents lacking this information would lose legal validity.
The proposal would also end the right to collect payments when a seed loses its industrial usefulness, such as resistance to pests or weeds, before the legal 20-year term expires. Another provision concerns so-called patent stacking, or stacking, a practice the bill describes as renewing licenses through minor changes to the grains.
At ports, silos and farms, inspections would no longer depend exclusively on private checks carried out by companies. Instead, opinions from technical teams of the state and public universities would be required. The measure would also prevent companies from imposing unilateral deductions on the final price of soybeans.
The text also establishes a social-return mechanism: 2% of all royalties collected in Paraguay would go to scientific research at public universities, focused on developing local seeds, and to maintaining the rural road network in production areas.
The proposal still must be debated and voted on by the Senate. If it advances, it could change how producers, biotechnology companies and buyers document and collect rights on seeds, as well as shift part of the inspections to public institutions.