The mission of the National Licensing Association - Australia is to advance and safeguard ethics in agriculture by creating an agribusiness environment that does not tolerate infringement of intellectual property rights.

The National Licensing Association enforces intellectual property rights in plants by collecting damages for infringement of plant patents and trademarks.

• Education, and not litigation, is the emphasis of the NLA-AU.
• Litigation is always the last resort.
• The NLA uses the fewest number of litigation cases to achieve the maximum educational benefit.
• The lesson is “Infringement by anyone is bad for agricultural markets.”

The NLA helps protect agricultural markets by encouraging the proper and ethical use of intellectual property rights with permanent plantings.
Cheap counterfeit or infringing plants damage agricultural markets by improperly lowering the cost of new plantings, creating an oversupply of produce and low market prices.

The NLA protects:

• The breeders’ intellectual property rights.
• The nurseries’ intellectual property rights
• Australian growers from illegal foreign competition
• The stability of agricultural markets
• Everyone involved in agribusiness