I found a link that gives us the names of the plants that are patented. I am not sure how complete this is but it is the only one I could find and I am very cautious due to the fact I sell most of the plants I propagate. Here it is. http://www.planthaven.com/pdfs/planthavenpatentlist.pdf
I have no idea if any of you are interested in this link, but it is good to have in the event you find a tropical you may decide to propagate and sell. I have one mandevillea that I love and was going to take cuttings when I noticed it was marked patented. That took away that idea. JB
Patented Plants List
To me that list just looks like the list of plants patented by that particular company--so if you have a plant and it's not on that list, I think you'll have to do more searching to figure out if it's patented. If you still have your plant tags, patented plants (or ones with patents pending) are required to be sold with the patent info on the tag, so you should just be able to check those and know whether you're OK or not. If you've got things that are older and you've lost the original tags, typically googling for the cultivar name will turn up online nurseries that sell it, and they're bound by the same rules about including the patent info so their website should list that's it's patented if it is. I'm sure there are a few places out there that don't follow the rules and haven't got caught yet, but if you look at a few different online nurseries it's very likely that you'll find the patent info. Or google the cultivar name plus the word patent, that will bring up info if it's patented too. The patent holders for these plants aren't trying to hide the fact that a plant is patented--they want the news spread far and wide that the plant belongs exclusively to them, so if you spend just a couple minutes on Google I can pretty much guarantee if it's patented you'll find that information.
Also, Plant Files recently added a field for patent info--since it's fairly new I'm sure there's a lot of incomplete information still, but you can always check there to see if anyone's put anything in about that particular plant, and then if you research things and find out they're patented (or not) you can add info to PF as well, and over time that should become a good resource.
Or lastly you can poke around on the patent office website www.uspto.gov They would be the final word on whether there's a patent on something or not, but it's not the friendliest site to search...and given what I said before about the patent holders wanting the info out there that certain plants are patented, I don't think you'd ever need to resort to digging through there to find the info, it should be widely available elsewhere.
ecrane, thank you for the information. I have been on google for several hours and I honestly did not find what I was looking for, nor do I know where to go next. I have written to the man who developed it and I am waiting to hear from him. You make it sound so easy, but for me, it is not that easy. Maybe it is because I am too old to be so curious, but I love learning new things and this is the one I have chosen for this week. LOL.
I wondered why there was only one gardenia on that link I put up. That explains it if it is just a few companies. I misread that information. Thanks for clarifying it. I was so excited to find that I lost my head. Off I go to search more. Thanks again
When you're searching, are you searching for patent info on individual plants, or are you searching for a master list of all the plants out there that are patented? If you're looking for a master list then I can definitely understand why you've been frustrated, I don't think such a thing exists (it would be a real pain to keep it updated for one thing since new things are constantly getting patented).
What I was talking about was searching for individual cultivars--whenever I've done that the patent info usually pops up pretty quickly if it's patented. Here's an example...let's say I wanted to find out if Mandevilla 'Sun Parasol Crimson' was patented. I put mandevilla sun parasol crimson patent into Google, and as you scroll down the list of hits you can see that a number of them on the first page mention the patent http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=mandevilla+sun+parasol+crimson+patent&aq=f&oq=&aqi= If it's a less common plant then the info may be a little harder to find, but for the most part the companies that take the time and spend the money to patent their plants also want to sell a lot of them so for most things the info should be fairly readily available.
So if you've spent some time doing searches like that and haven't run across any info saying that your cultivar is patented, chances are it isn't. The trouble is you won't typically find something saying flat out "plant xxx is not patented", you have to conclude that from doing some searches such as what I described above and finding no references at all that mention a patent. Of course if you know who developed it then it never hurts to check with them for confirmation particularly if it's a more uncommon plant, but if you know it's fairly widely available and you do the search and nothing comes up, then it most likely isn't patented. Also if it's a plant that is carried at local nurseries, you can stop by a few of them and look at the labels--the plant tags on patented plants are required to list the patent info so if the labels on their plants don't have patent info then you should be fine.
The other thing you'll have to watch out for if you're selling things is trademarks--even if a plant isn't patented, sometimes what you think is the cultivar name is actually a trademark name (such as Sun Parasol Crimson). As an example, if Sun Parasol Crimson wasn't patented, then you could sell the plant under its real cultivar name (which happens to be the ever so memorable 'Sunmandecrikim') but you couldn't sell it as Sun Parasol Crimson without the permission of the trademark holder. Many times trademarks and patents go together, so if you do spot something with a cutesy trademark name like that then it would be a red flag to go hunting for a patent on it, but there are some things that are trademarked but not patented and vice versa so it's not a 100% sure thing.
I found a patent search site for you that's a bit easier to use than the US PTO site (I can't even figure out where to search for plant patents on there anymore). http://www.freepatentsonline.com/search.html It doesn't look like it covers plant patent applications, so you will miss things that have the PPAF designation but haven't received their final approval yet. The other trick is you need to know the real cultivar name, not the cutesy tradename. And I think there are some plant patents that describe the plant's characteristics but don't necessarily list a particular cultivar name, so I would still recommend doing the Google search I described above. Google also has a beta version of a patent search site http://www.google.com/patents although it would still have the limitation of needing to know the real cultivar name.
I still think a regular Google search is the easiest thing to do as a first step since you can search for the cultivar name or the tradename and the info should still come up, and it'll catch plants with patent applications as well as granted patents. If you don't find anything on the regular Google search saying it's patented, then as a next step you could try the Google patent search or free patents online search to give you an extra level of certainty.
This plant was an unmarked Gardenia Tree my daughter picked up at Acme. I found the name of the wholesale distributor on the pot when I transplanted it. I wrote to them and they sent back a very nice answer plus were going to forward my questions to the owner in Florida. I did not intend to sell these cuttings until I cut some blooms for my own use in the house and they sprouted. It is an amazing tree, I have shown pictures of it on this list.
I did find it was called Aimee Yoshioka. So I am off to keep searching and put your suggestions into action. Thanks so much.
Since I am a certified NJ Nursery I am very careful what I sell and ship. That is why I go the extra mile to be sure what I am doing prior to doing it. My daughter is employed by the NJ Dept of Ag. in Marketing and my SIL is the VP of a very large nursery that just closed after 20 plus years, so I have lots of assistance here, but I just decided to look up patents myself. Most of the plants are marked when they are patented and even in Logees, they will tell you if a plant is not to be propagated for sale. People are very helpful.