The Ministry of Agriculture extended its Pilot Projects for Law Enforcement of New Variety Rights of Agricultural Plants to fifteen provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the jurisdiction of the Central Government, such as Shandong, in an effort to promote the healthy development of new variety protection, strengthen law enforcement, raise efficiency and protect the legitimate rights of new variety right holders and the rural residents. The New Plant Variety Protection Office under the Ministry of Agriculture is charged with overall organization and management while the IP Division of the Ministry's Department of Technology and Education is responsible for its execution. 

These pilot projects are aimed at educating law enforcement staff, raising the public's awareness of compliance, improving the building of relevant law enforcement system, exploring effective law enforcement models and building a better monitoring and reporting platform.

To this end, the following measures have been taken: formulating rules and regulations, building a strong law enforcement team, putting standard law enforcement procedures in place, exploring new law enforcement models, handling variety right disputes in a timely and fair manner, cracking down on counterfeiting and piracy of new varieties, raising the efficiency of investigation and creating a fair and orderly seed market. This will allow relevant regulations on new variety protection to play its role, foster innovation in breeding and promote the advancement of agricultural technology.

The pilot projects on law enforcement of plant variety rights will be conducted in fifteen provinces, autonomous regions or municipalities in 2007 including Shandong, Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Fujian, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan, Yunnan and Xinjiang.