Plant Patents

I have been very aware of propagating patented plants when marked. But, some are not marked and so I have decided to look them up. I found this link in the event any of you have need to check it out .http://www.planthaven.com/pdfs/planthavenpatentlist.pdf

I have been told that is not a complete list, so forgive me for that. Anyhow, there are some plants there and if anyone cares, it is a start. I am so disappointed. I thought I found something great. Guess not. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother. I just get so excited when I find things like that I want to share. Sorry to have wasted your time if you take it to read this post.

Hi JB:
Not a waste of time. Its important and we need to be aware of it. I bought some new heuchera's corriopsis and echinacea's from a co-op and one of the members said to just takes some cuttings to winter over in case the momma plant does not survive. I wanted to slap em....lol. Thats why they have patents. The one thing to be aware of is that the patents do run out kind of like a life span. I am not sure of the exact life span but I would like to know so I don't do anything wrong.
Dave

We have been working on adding the patents to the PlantFile entries, and in the process I've found that this is a good place to look, either by date or by type of plant http://www.patentgenius.com/class/PLT.html

Where it gets tricky is trying to match the trade name with the name it was patented under. Often times they aren't the same. That's when you have to do some googling to see if you can put them together.

New patents are released every Tuesday, and plant patents always start with PP From the same site I linked above, this is where the new patents are listed by date: http://www.patentgenius.com/date.html Click on the year and every Tuesday to date will be listed. Click on that and the patents are listed.

Thank you so much Joan. The plant in question is listed in our Plant File but the patent us unknown. It is known as Aimee Yoshioka and is a Gardenia jasminoides., I am sure you know all that extra stuff. The First Love mentioned as additional cultivar information has raised my confusion. I need to find out more about that. I have an email pending a reply that was forwarded to the man in Florida who has been raising and selling these plants to the wholesaler I got mine from, and one question I ask was regarding the patent. So far I have not received any reply. I keep hoping one will be forthcoming soon.
I have about a dozen or more cuttings from this Big Mama and they are looking good.
I would hate to have to give them all away. :)

Hi Joan:
I am curious as to how long a patent is good for? I know it has a shelf life. The site has been quite a read and I am hopefull it will fill in a lot of blanks on my questions on the process, costs and other misc. things we all overlook or at least I tend to. Any help with the life span of a plant patent would be deeply apreciated. I think its a good thing you are updating files of plants with their patent info.
Dave

I've done some research into plant patenting because of all the new hybrids I've been producing over the years. My understanding is that a plant patent has a "shelf life" of 17 years. One of the most important bits of information that I found out (much to my chagrin) is that you can only patent a plant, not a hybridization. By that I mean that if you do a cross and get 12 different progeny, 6 of which look promising commercially, you have to patent each one of the six. You cannot patent the cross, "Plant A x Plant B". If you have 200 different selections, to protect them you'd have to patent all 200! This also means that someone else could do the same cross and patent a different selection than the one you patented. Additionally, if you are growing patented plants and a sport significantly different from the original plant springs up among them, that novel plant is not covered by the patent. In fact, if you discover the sport, you can patent it yourself if you have the $2500 or so that it costs to have it patented.

LariAnn
Aroidia Research

I couldn't find a patent or a patent application for Gardenia 'Aimee', so I assume that means it's not patented.

My understanding is that a patent is good for 20 years from the date the application was filed. http://law.freeadvice.com/intellectual_property/patent_law/patent_duration.htm and http://www.mcw.edu/OTD/router.asp?docid=10528 and http://inventors.about.com/od/inventing101patents/f/protection_last.htm It used to be 17 years, but is now 20 under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Treaty (GATT)

I think it just makes sense that you could only patent a totally unique plant. Otherwise, one person could say they own all crosses of two plants. LOL. That wouldn't be fun at all. I think most crosses are not worth patenting. That's why most people plant thousands of plants and only choose 1 or 2 out of the bunch.

I apreciate the info. I know its steep to get the patent done but if it takes off its well worth the expense. of course thats how it is with anything new, its a gamble. Thanks for all the great links
Dave

Another thought on this is the idea that although you patent an individual plant, if you were the person who did the cross and no one else has done the cross, someone else should not be allowed to take one of your plants and patent it "against you" (i.e. to compete with your patent from that cross). If you give your consent, then they could try to patent it. If the cross is particularly difficult to perform, just the fact that you succeeded in performing it when no one else could should count for something, IMHO. As far as I know, the rules do not give this kind of protection to a breeder, leaving them open to predation by the big corporate growers and marketers.

No doubt this whole field is going to get a lot murkier once genetic engineering and "frankenplants" become more commonplace in the ornamental horticulture industry.

Are you saying that I shouldn't be allowed to cross two plants if you crossed them? or...are you saying I shouldn't be able to take your plant (cross) and cross it with something else?

You can get many different types of plant from the same cross. I don't understand why someone can't cross them and get a different plant than you did and patent their plant. I think the way it works now is proper. It's basically whoever finds a plant first gets to patent it. Isn't that correct?

If you reread what I wrote, you'll see that I'm talking about someone taking one of the progeny from my cross (not theirs) and patenting it "against me". If someone else wants to do the cross themselves, there is nothing stopping them.

Since I seem not to be making myself very clear, here's an example:

You do a cross and get 5 plants. 3 look worthy of patenting. You patent one of the three. Someone jumps your fence one night while you are asleep and steals one of the two that are left and patents it to compete with your patented plant. They didn't do the cross; they took your plant and want to take credit and make money from it. Is that what you mean by "whoever finds a plant first gets to patent it"?

Ok. I thought you meant that only one person should have the right to do the same cross of two plants. Thanks for clearing that up.

Joan, the info below is in DG plant file and if you see the additionalcultivar information
says (FirstLove and has the little R in a circle) does that mean First Love name is registered or what? Maybe it means the plant called First Love is registered. Sorry to ask so many questions, but I need to learn what these things mean.

Family: Rubiaceae
Genus: Gardenia (gar-DEEN-ya) (Info)
Species: jasminoides (jaz-min-OY-deez) (Info)
Cultivar: Aimee
Additional cultivar information: (First Love®)

Synonym:Gardenia angusta
Synonym:Gardenia augusta
Synonym:Gardenia florida
Synonym:Gardenia grandiflora
Synonym:Gardenia radicans

Yes, it means that it's a registered name, perhaps from the company or that it's part of a registered series. It doesn't have anything to do with whether it's patented or not. Here is how Monrovia has it listed and they are possibly the breeders. http://www.monrovia.com/learn/plant_catalog/detail.php?id=1021

It's not uncommon for plants to be registered by one name and marketed with another. It's confusing, but it happens. Roses are exceptionally bad for that.

That is very interesting. Strange, they say it likes filtered sun. Mine is in bright sun all day long and 80 plus deg. heat, but it drinks lots of water. Hmmmmm makes you wonder what is correct. Thanks so much for your wonderful information. I love this place. Nothing goes unanswered. Hugs. Jb

JB: good morning....I think it has to do with the degree or angle of the sun to your location. I have grown gardenia in full sun but had to pour the water to it. The filtered sun is probably where it would be happiest. The little r is a registered trade mark just like pepsi or coke has the little r by the name.

If I buy a Ligustrum lucidum or a Loropetalum chinese from a big box store and it doesnt say patented or patent applied for, am I free to propagate and sell at will?

This message was edited Aug 18, 2009 5:22 PM

I wouldn't depend on a big box store getting the right tag with the right plant, so I wouldn't rely on that. It would be a good idea to google to see if there's any patent information on it, or you can go directly to the patent site and search for it. However, many plants have a different patent names vs. trade name, so googling should come first before you attempt to look up the patent itself.