Mother’s Day hydrangeas have a little plastic tag stating, “PP #10,152 Asexual Propagation Prohibited. Bay City Flower Company, Inc.” What’s this? A patented plant.
Many people are surprised to learn that The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office grants patents for plants. Under patent law, the first person to appreciate the distinctive qualities of a plant and reproduce it asexually is the inventor. Asexual reproduction means the plant is reproduced by means other than seeds, including methods such as cutting, grafting, or layering. To qualify for the patent, the plant must also be novel and distinctive, and not something found growing freely in the wild. Edible tuber reproduced plants, such as a potato, are not eligible for patents.
So, “asexual propagation prohibited”- what does this really mean? Does it mean you can’t multiply a plant that you paid for? That is exactly what it means, although it is unlikely that the plant police are going to bust into your backyard and haul you away. The rules are there to prevent unlicensed reproduction. A nursery could make a lot of money illegally selling cuttings of a patented plant, so there are inspectors that visit these sort of businesses on occasion to make sure patents are being honored. Nurseries and wholesale growers ARE able to asexually reproduce patented plants as long as they have paid for the rights to do so.
Those who invest their time, energy, and money into breeding beautiful and useful plants use patents to protect their investment. The laws apply to everyone and the purpose is to protect the plant line as well as the inventor of the particular plant. Plant patent laws are a good thing because the people who know how to breed interesting new plants have the financial incentive to do so.
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