Trademark And Patent

This article will give you a breakdown of what a plant patent is.

The first type of patent is called a plant patent. It is usually given to people who have invented a new plant hybrid. It is also given when a new variety of plant has been discovered, and the person has successfully been able to reproduce it. Not every plant can be patented; for example, the Patent Office will not issue a patent for a tuberous plant. A plant patent is usually given for a duration of twenty years.

A plant is considered by the Patent and Trademark Office as being living thing that has its own natural composition. The natural composition of a plant is made

possible by the genes the plant possess. These genes can be reproduced in an asexual capacity, allowing the genes to be transferred to daughter plants.

The most common forms of plants granted patents are mutants, hybrid plants, and plants which have undergone a type of transformation. A mutant plant can be from one of two sources discovered naturally, or created. The same is true of hybrids, which can be found in nature or created intentionally.

The general guidelines for determining whether a plant is suitable for patenting are as follows:

The plant should be different from any other plant that already exists, with at least one change in its composition. When compared with another plant that

is a relative, the potential patented plant should have at least one thing different about it.
The plant must be new. It can be considered new either by having been created in a nursery or greenhouse, or new because of its discovery in nature.
A newly discovered plant, or one that has been created, can only enter into the patent application process if the person who first discovered or created it, makes the application.
At the time of the application, other people in the plant industry must not have thought it an obvious invention.
The plant can not previously have been offered for sale prior to the patent application.
The plant can not have been available to the public for more than one year prior to the patent application. This one year limitation includes the sale of the plant, but also the description of the plant in a publication, such as a botany journal.

In order to quality for a plant patent, the applicant must have successfully reproduced the plant via asexual methods. Many people are not sure of what asexual reproduction means, but generally it results in a next generation of plants that are an exact replica, in appearance and genes, as the mother plant. This is in contrast to reproduction in a sexual way, in which the offspring are not an exact replica.

Animals engage in sexual reproduction, and offspring varies in appearance from their parents. Examples of what the Patent Office considers to be asexual reproduction in plants include bulbs, grafts, runners, cuttings from roots, plants created in the layering process, or corms.

Other than using photographs, some people seeking plant patents use regular colored drawings to show the Patent Office the plant they are describing–even hiring a professional artist to produce these drawings for them. In this aspect, plant patents have both components to design and utility patents.

You now have the knowledge that you need to decide if a plant patent is for you.

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