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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 Patents
Did you know?
The Plant Patent Act was passed in 1930 and was the first legislation
in the world to give intellectual property rights to plant breeders.
See a detailed
description of Plant Patents on the U.S. Patent and Trademark web site.
This guide describes plant patents, and how to apply for a plant patent.
Excerpts are printed below:
What is a Plant Patent?
"A plant patent is granted by the Government to an inventor (or the
inventor's heirs or assigns) who has invented or discovered and asexually reproduced
a distinct and new variety of plant, other than a tuber propagated plant or
a plant found in an uncultivated state. The grant, which lasts for 20 years
from the date of filing the application, protects the inventor's right to exclude
others from asexually reproducing, selling, or using the plant so reproduced.
This protection is limited to a plant in its ordinary meaning:
- A living plant organism which expresses a set of characteristics determined
by its single, genetic makeup or genotype, which can be duplicated through
asexual reproduction, but which can not otherwise be "made" or "manufactured."
- Sports, mutants, hybrids, and transformed plants are comprehended; sports
or mutants may be spontaneous or induced. Hybrids may be natural, from a
planned breeding program, or somatic in source. While natural plant mutants
might have naturally occurred, they must have been discovered in a cultivated
area.
- Algae and macro fungi are regarded as plants, but bacteria are not."
Obtaining a Plant Patent
Locating Plant Patents
Searching online to identify plant patents of interest
- If you know the patent number you can enter that into the USPTO's patent
number search screen. Plant patents always begin with the letters PP,
followed by up to 5 numbers.
- Plant patents are classified first by type of plant (e.g., rose or conifer)
and then by characteristics such as habit (shrub or climber for rose) and
may be further subclassified (by color for a type of rose). The classification
system can be viewed here (note, you can expand or contract the outline
to obtain more or less detail by using the drop down menu or the + and -
symbols).
- Plant patents can also be searched by field--e.g., patent assignee, inventor,
etc. More information on how to do this is available on the Libraries' patent
and trademark web site.
- Note: Patent images are stored as TIFF files. A special plug-in is required
to view patent images online. Information
and a link for downloading this plug-in are available on the USPTO web
site.
Obtaining the actual plant patent
- The library holds print copies of plant patents. Each patent
includes a description of how the plant was propagated, color
photographs showing detailed views of the plant and its fruit, blossoms,
etc., as well as references to related patents.
- Plant patents are located
at Satellite Shelving and can be requested by patent number through TripSaver. After you log in, select one of the Satellite
Shelving online reqeust forms, type the words plant patent and
then the patent number(s) in the Notes field of the request form.
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