They are talking about a license from the patent holder. It's a contract.

Thank you for the information!

And depending on the breeder, you may not get permission to propagate their plant. Most of the breeders sell their cuttings to licensed "root & sell" stations who root the cuttings in some type of liner, then sell to other greenhouses to finish and sell retail. Most do NOT allow you to take cuttings and root them yourself.

I don't think any of them would give you permsission on a onesie-twosie basis. I have propagation licenses with two breeders, and it involved visits from inspectors from the royalty administrations. Not cost effective.

I've been in the business two decades now and have seen lots of changes in those years, especially involving patents and propagation options. Like most other businesses, floriculture is becoming increasingly central and several major entities are and have been gobbling up the smaller breeders. That's when "rooting stations" came into their own.

Back when I first started growing, many of the breeders would have options on their contracts where you had the option of taking a set of cuttings, and paid the royalty 'up front' on them when you purchased the liner stock for growing on. I haven't seen one of those contracts in many moons.

You'll also notice that the label vendors are seriously cutting back on their 'generic' plant labels, instead making available only those tags for patented varieties. I had ordered labels a couple years back for Montauk daisies, I had propagated from quite legal general stock. When I got the labels from the vendor, on them were the advertisement for one distributing entity, who supposedly was selling an improved strain. No other labels were available from my usual sources. I have found that to be increasingly common, as are the increasingly common problems finding stock NOT patented. As soon as it goes out of patent, it's replaced by a New Improved substitute, whether it's improved or not.

It's all about making it pay. As in other fields, the profit motive takes over and big boys arise and dominate. Things are lost along the way.