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Plant Intellectual Property
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Plant Intellectual Property
Plant Patents
Plant Variety Protection
Utility Patents for Plants
Biotechnology
and Patents
Plant IP at NC State
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Plant Intellectual Property
Newly developed plant varieties
in the U.S. can be protected by one of three types of regulations depending on
the nature of the plant, it's means of reproduction, and other characteristics.
The three options are plant patents, plant variety protection certificates,
and utility patents. Each option is described briefly below. Click on the
link for more detailed information about each means of plant related intellectual
property protection.
Plant Patent
- Covers distinct
and new varieties of asexually reproduced plants (other than tuber propagated
plants or plants found in an uncultivated state).
- The plant must be distinct from other plants, which usually means it has
one or more characteristics that distinguish it from other plants. Characteristics
range from habit, method and ease of reproduction, color of flowers, stems,
leaves, flavor, etc.
- One important component of the patent application is that the description
of the plant must as complete as reasonably possible; to aid in this, pictures
are usually included as part of the application and the final patent.
- Protection lasts for 20 years
and gives inventors the right to prevent others from reproducing, selling,
or using the plant.
- These protections are legislated in the Plant Patent Act (PPA), enacted
in 1930, and administered by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
(USPTO).
Plant Variety
Protection Certificate
- Covers
true breeding plant varieties sexually reproduced (by seed) or
tuber propagated. A plant must be new, distinct, uniform, and stable
- Gives certificate holders the right to exclude others from selling,
reproducing, importing or using a variety in producing a hybrid or different
variety. Coverage extends for 20 years.
- Includes two exemptions (that differentiate it from plant or utility patents).
One exemption gives farmers who have purchased the plant seed the right to
save seed for replanting. The other exemption allows breeders or researchers
to use the seed for developing a new variety.
- The Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA) was passed in 1970 and
amended in 1994. The PVPA is not administered by the US Patent and Trademark
Office, but by the Plant Variety Protection Office (PVPO), part of the United
States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Utility Patent
- A utility patent is the most common type of patent. The USPTO states that
a patent may be granted to anyone who "invents or discovers any new and
useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter,
or any new and useful improvement thereof."
- Criteria necessary for an item or process to be patentable
are novelty, utility, and nonobviousness.
- A utility patent gives the holder the right granted
to exclude
others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling, or importing,
the patented item or process for a period of 20 years.
- Utility patent protection can include living organisms, methods of breeding
or genetic engineering, molecular techniques. An important case establishing
that utility patents could be applied to living organisms was the 1980 Supreme
Court decision in Diamond v. Chakrabarty (44 U.S. 303, 1980).
Additional Resources
Useful descriptions and analyses of the different types of plant intellectual
property protection:
Basic information on intellectual property and types of patents (from the
NCSU Libraries):
See the Biotechnology and Patents page
for more information on that topic, and for articles about important court
cases dealing with the patenting of living organisms and genes.
Librarian Contact Information
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