How Can I Know If My Cultivar Is New and Distinct for Patenting Purposes? “So how can I know if the cultivar I bred is really new and distinct enough for patenting, because I heard it’s required for a cultivar to be ‘new and distinct’ in order to be patentable?” Here’s my answer: It is …
Plant Law: How Can I Know If My Cultivar Is New and Distinct for Patenting Purposes? Read More »
Why Open-Source in Cannabis Genetics Doesn’t Work – And How to Fix It
Still So Much Confusion about IP Options for Cannabis – Let’s Fix That
THE PHYLOS FIASCO WAS A WAKE-UP CALL TO BREEDERS DNA Is Not Required For Patenting — Never Has Been In the wake of the Phylos controversy, many are wondering about the need for DNA sequence information in patents. That’s a complicated question in some ways, because the answer has some layers and explanations to it. …
NONE: That’s How Much DNA Sequence You Need to Submit A Plant Patent Application Read More »
COMMON BUT VERY AVOIDABLE MISTAKES IN PLANT PATENTING Protect Those Cultivars, But Do It Right Plant breeders must devote many years and tremendous effort to develop a new plant variety with strong commercial potential. In order to protect all that effort from illicit copying (propagating), many choose to seek protection under the U.S. plant patent …
Three Rookie Mistakes Plant Patent Applicants Make Read More »
Passage of the 2018 Farm Bill has changed the dynamics of the industrial hemp industry in the US and – probably by extension – worldwide. If you are a hemp breeder or run a seed company and are developing some unique genetics, you may be wondering how you can best structure a nationwide or international …
Hemp IP After the Farm Bill: Patenting Your Genetics – Powerful, Affordable Protection Read More »
Suppose you are a plant breeder. You know there is significant demand for a table grape that ripens two weeks earlier than anything currently on the market. Who wants to buy grapes imported from half a world away, where the seasons are different, or grapes that have been sitting in storage, if there could be …
Plant patents provide a very important tool for people, companies, and universities to protect each new variety of plant they develop. Plant patents protect the developer’s exclusive control over asexual propagation of the new variety. For information about the effort that goes into developing a new plant variety, and the importance of plant patents, click …
Since I live and work in the US, my blog is obviously US-centric. However, I have helped plant breeders in many different countries obtain IP protection for their cultivars all over the world. In the US, protection for plant cultivars can be in the form of plant patents, utility patents, and/or USDA PVP registrations. In …
Protecting Your Cannabis Genetics in Canada and Internationally Read More »
Although I have degrees in botany and plant genetics and have worked with plant breeders for 20+ years, I recently learned that I have been sloppy in my use of plant-breeding terminology. Part of that comes from the fact that the truly geeky among us (the professors who make the rules) sometimes change the rules …
