Plant patents are just that, not seed patents. Your seed will not grow an identical plant and you will not be able to call the resulting plants grown from the seed the patented plant name. You would be able to call it a ninebark species plant. Al

Ok, But wouldnt at least some of the offspring of two patented plants (in this case the same cultivar)bear the important features of the patent??
Lets take the Hakuro Nishiki 'Flamingo' for example. If you sexually propagated 2 Flamingos, wouldnt at least some of the offspring have the better coloration Flamingo is supposed to have?
But a more basic question is, is that even possible? Since both flamingos are genetically the same plant, could they even sexually reproduce?

Some hybrids produce sterile seed most do not. The plant grown from the seed can have a range of characteristics quite similar to very different from either plant used to produce the hybrid. The patent protects the hybridizer from VEGETATIVE propagation which will produce a plant with 'almost' all of the features of the hybridized original. To produce an exact copy in large quantity a laboratory will be hired to use tissue culture of an individual plant cell. To produce a new plant variety involves(in most cases)a large investment in time and money and the patent allows a 'return' on the investment. Al

Ok, so if I really wanted to propagate a patented plant for just one or two of its characteristics, I could do it sexually, select the handful of appropriate offspring, and sell them under a different name,and no one could argue. That may take a few years, but the end result might be worth it.

Thanks for your help!

I think you'd have a hard time getting a patent if the plant is too similar to the original plant. You should try to improve the plant in some way. I've got some coneflowers that look just like those Big Sky plants, but I think people would have a hard time buying something so similar to the originals. That's what makes hybridizing fun to me...trying to come up with something before someone else does it!

I'm actually not trying to patent my own; I'm just trying to figure out legal ways around other's patents. Any slight genetic variation would seem to fit the law.

wallknight,

A clarification of something you said earlier:

On Aug. 13, you wrote:

"Ok, so if I really wanted to propagate a patented plant for just one or two of its characteristics, I could do it sexually, select the handful of appropriate offspring, and sell them under a different name, and no one could argue. That may take a few years, but the end result might be worth it."

That's not quite how it works. Each of your "handful of appropriate offspring", given that each was grown from seed, would be genetically different from the others, even if they appeared outwardly to be identical. So you could not sell "them" under a different single name. Each being different, each should have its own name. You could take the best one and propagate from cuttings or division and sell those plants under one name.

If all of them had orange leaves, I'd be happy to call them 'orange - leaf (species)'. I'm not looking to be technical. Just looking to avoid legal issues!