(30)Under specific circumstances, in order to stimulate research and development within the agri-food industry, and thus innovation, it is appropriate to protect the investment made by the applicants in gathering the information and data provided in support of an application for a novel food made in accordance with this Regulation. The newly developed scientific evidence and proprietary data provided in support of an application for inclusion of a novel food in the Union list should be protected. Those data and information should, for a limited period of time, not be used to the benefit of a subsequent applicant, without the agreement of the initial applicant. The protection of scientific data provided by an applicant should not prevent other applicants from seeking the inclusion of a novel food in the Union list on the basis of their own scientific data or by referring to the protected data with the agreement of the initial applicant. However, the overall five-year period of data protection which has been granted to the initial applicant should not be extended due to the granting of data protection to subsequent applicants.