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How Patents Feed The World

Friday, February 12, 2010 7:22 am

Most of us have heard of utility, design and provisional patents, but there is one more – Plant Patents.

Plant patents are awarded for twenty years to those individuals who invent asexually reproduced varieties of living plants, such as: vegetables, some tubers, algae and macro fungi. A new “macro fungi” is always something to look forward to. But seriously, plant oriented inventions have helped feed the world by producing larger harvests as well as fruit, vegetables and tubers that are resistant to disease. Plant patents also make our world more beautiful with great new varieties of flowers and foliage.

The Plant Patent Act of 1930 amended our patent laws originating from 1790. The purpose of the 1930 Act was to encourage discoveries important to the nation and mankind by providing plant breeders with financial incentive and control over their work.

Per the United States Patent Office, asexual plant reproduction must be stable assuring that the inventive plant variety retains the identical uniqueness. The patent rights are only for one specific inventive plant. The rights do not extend to future asexual varieties of the patented plant.

In 1970 the Plant Patent Laws were amended by the Plant Variety Protection Act. No longer does the Patent Office accept applications for human-manipulated plants that can be sexually reproduced from seeds. Also excluded from receiving a patent is the Potato. With the 1970 Act, intellectual property protection for original seed reproduced plant varieties, and newly invented potatoes, are through the Plant Variety Protection Office that grants a Certificate of Protection. This Certificate provides the holder with exclusive commercial rights.

The inciting force behind the Plant Patent Act and the related Plant Variety Protection Act was America’s greatest Horticulturist and a 1986 inductee into the Inventors Hall of Fame, Luther Burbank (1849-1926). The Acts were enthusiastically supported by Thomas Edison himself. Although the holder of multiple Plant Patents, sadly, all of Burbank’s patents were awarded following his death.

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