by Jim J Jones

Created on: June 16, 2010

Patents for inventions and copyrights for works of art exist for the simple reason that no person who is clever, original and innovative should lose the incentive to develop new and exciting ideas out of fear that they will be stolen by those too lazy to develop new ideas themselves. Patents guarantee inventors the exclusive right to manufacture a product for several years after developing the idea. In this same spirit, there is a guarantee for those who develop new strains of plants. Known as "plant breeders' rights," "plant variety rights," or "plant patents," these grant exclusive access to new strains of plants (exclusive access in this case meaning legal control over the seeds, the plants themselves, and whatever fruit they may bear) for some fixed number of growing seasons.

To qualify for a plant patent, a new breed of plant must distinct, uniform and stable. The process of acquiring a plant patent begins long before the actual test for distinctness, uniformity, and stability. A company or, more rarely, an individual, must spend years cross breeding different plants and fiddling with its genome by inserting genes or removing them, in an effort to shorten growing time, increase yield per plant, introduce pesticidal genes, or do something similar to enhance longevity, efficiency, or viability.

Distinctness: A plant strain is distinct if it differs from all other varieties in at least one feature, such as height, maturity, color, or something similar.
Uniformity: This is essentially a test of whether the strain breeds true. All members of the species have to exhibit the same new, distinct trait.
Stability: If the species continues to maintain its genetic integrity after several generations, and remain a unique species. Testing for hybrid strains, which are prone to exhibiting odd recombinations after several generations (due to the properties of a dihybrid, 2 generation Mendelian cross), generally lasts longer.

The manufacturer of the new strain must be willing to provide an appropriate and acceptable new name (technically known as a denomination) for the new species he has manufactured. This name will serve as a unique identifier for the species, and must be used both by the manufacturer when marketing the plant, but also by those to whom the plant is licensed, when they themselves are marketing its fruits. Once acquired, the plant breeder's rights usually last 20 to 25 years, depending on the specific laws of the country in which the rights are acquired.

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