Dear CIOPORA members, please extend a warm welcome to Ms. Alanna Rennie, the newest member of the CIOPORA team. Alanna joined CIOPORA as a legal intern and will be with us until April 30, 2018.
Alanna works for law firm Baker McKenzie in Sydney where she has experience in Intellectual Property and has advised on a number of PVP related matters. She completed a bachelor of laws/commerce at Bond University where she graduated with honors. Alanna subsequently completed her Masters of Chinese Law at Tsinghua University, Beijing, where she undertook her thesis on the system of Plant Breeder's Rights (PBR) in China. Being a fluent Mandarin speaker, Alanna was able to engage with Chinese authorities and professors in the PBR space to carry out her research. Alanna also had the opportunity to attend a number of inter-governmental roundtables on the feasibility of China's accession to the 1991 UPOV Convention. From these experiences, Alanna has seen the challenges but also the opportunities for breeders in China. Her interest in PBR stems from her family's extensive use of new plant varieties on their farms in Australia, where she has seen first hand the benefits that new varieties bring to agriculture.