INTRODUCTION: The Agro 4.0 movement brought technological development to the field, especially regarding to computational technology and biotechnology throughout the development of capable software and hardware and the involvement of biotechnology in the production of transgenic cultivars. OBJECTIVES: Thus, considering that Law is an important instrument to foster investments in technological development by presenting adequate intellectual property rules, the analysis of the legal protection that falls upon cultivars and software, as products widely used in agribusiness, is necessary to investigate the suitability of the intellectual property rights and institutes. The general objective of this research was to collect and analyze the jurisprudence of the superior courts and the national and international legal provisions that deal with the legal protection of cultivars and software, and, as specific objectives, to investigate the socioeconomic context in which the brazilian agribusiness is inserted, now dictated by the Agro 4.0 guidelines, in addition to analyzing the need to share information and technology among the players in the agribusiness market, without discouraging capital investments in research and technological development guaranteed by private companies. MATERIALS AND METHOD: To achieve the aforementioned objectives, the method utilzed in this research was the deductive, consolidated by the bibliographic research of academic articles, doctrines, and jurisprudence of superior courts, and also by quantitative research to enable the analysis and conjecture of data related to the use of the technologies and the need, or not, for greater legal protection. RESULTS: The results showed that the standard systems of intellectual property protection legally provided for cultivars and software are susceptible to an overlap os intellectual property rights, notably by granting patents that ensure, in practice, greater legal protection for these assets. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS: However, in proportionally inverse results, it was clarified that the patenting of transgenic cultivars may not be adequate, considering the socioeconomic and environmental character in which agribusiness is inserted, so that this would deprive the dissemination of these plant varieties, while the patenting of software may be adequate to disseminate this type of technology to more producers.
