Here's my interpretation: Please someone educate or correct me if I'm incorrect.

Sounds like your only interested in selling seeds.

The patent seeds you are referring to are yours to buy and grow. The patent lies with the original producer.

Once you grow the plant and it comes to seed, the seed produced by your crop are no longer subject to the original patent due to variations in genetics ect.

Although you can't buy grow a patent seed and then resell it under your name or rename the plant.

Other wise every seed ever patented would still be subject to the paten laws.

That said. There are tons on non-patent heirloom type seeds on the market that you can freely grow and sell. The seller or the package will clearly state the seed is under U.S. Patent.

Other than genetically engineered seeds, patents do not apply to seeds collected from any plant. This a not a human controlled process but rather one of natural selection and cannot be included under current plant breeder's rights and patent laws. The seeds themselves MAY be patented (although other than GM, patented seeds are uncommon), but the produce of the plants grown from such seeds (ie, the second generation seeds) are not. Because of the possibility of cross pollination or initial hybridization, seeds collected from these plants may not come true to form or original parentage.

So unless you are into genetically engineered veggies, feel free to collect away! BTW, this is how those heirloom seed companies came into being, by carefully collecting the seeds of various heirloom strains, but unless they are grown under very restricted conditions, they are all subject to cross pollination with other, compatible species and therefore subtle genetic changes.

Thank you very much, that clears up a few things. My acctual intent is in putting together a 4-H program for the local kids that involves them in many aspects of comercial horticulture, including participation in the local weekly farmer's market selling thier produce, plants, and/or seeds harvested from thier crops. I was unsure about the extent of a patents right on the seeds however.

Since one of the main focus points of the program is biodiversity and the use of addapted heirloom varieties over genetically enhanced or hybrid varieties (since our climate is pretty hard on most of these anyway, nothing like 110 degrees and under 4 inches annual rain) we should be sticking primarily with public domain plants anyway. I just wanted to cross all my T's incase one of the kids just "has to have" a certain newer variety as part of thier project.

My understanding was that while you can use patented-but-non-GM seeds in a cross and sell the product of the cross, you can't simply select from the line without crossing it with something else, and sell the resulting seeds. Unfortunately, the book that I got that idea from (_Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties_) is temporarily packed in a box somewhere and I can't check to see if I'm remembering it correctly.

However, that book does have a fairly detailed discussion of the issue and the law, at least at the time that the book was published.

Burnet

"Other than genetically engineered seeds, patents do not apply to seeds collected from any plant. This a not a human controlled process but rather one of natural selection and cannot be included under current plant breeder's rights and patent laws. The seeds themselves MAY be patented (although other than GM, patented seeds are uncommon), but the produce of the plants grown from such seeds (ie, the second generation seeds) are not. Because of the possibility of cross pollination or initial hybridization, seeds collected from these plants may not come true to form or original parentage."

This is not correct. Tens of thousands of cultivars are being patented that are not GM. The average review process for seed patenting lasts 6 minutes. Current U.S. law allows corporations to patent whatever they wish, whether or not they developed it or "discovered" it.

This patenting is one of the things that has accelerated greatly after the consolidation of the seed industry that we have recently experienced. (http://www.etcgroup.org/documents/Comm90GlobalSeed.pdf)

There is even nothing to stop the patenting of heirloom varieties. After the fact, if somebody can confront the patent office with evidence that the seed was produced in the public domain and provide a preserved sample from before the patent date for genetic analysis, the patent will not hold.

Syngenta (the world's largest vegetable seed company) was recently purchased by Monsanto and is currently trying to globally patent 30,000 gene sequences in rice to create monopoly control of the world's most widely used grain, and is making similar attempts with wheat, corn and sorghum. These are not only GM seeds, and in the case of rice, they include the seed stock of over 90% of the seeds currently being planted.