Plant Patent and Licensing – What you Need to be Aware Of

You might have brought some beautiful Hostas and are looking to propagate them and sell at a local market. You might want to consider your decision again. Most probably, these Hostas will be protected by patent and you might need plant licensing to be able to sell them. At first, it might seem silly to you, but it is very much true. When looking to clone any sort of plant, one needs to be careful. They should first find out if the plant is a nursery plant and has been patented by the nursery that created the. You need to locate the local plant department in your local agriculture store and check this out. They will have many plants that will be labelled patented or trademarked.

The purpose of patents and licensing has been going on in the horticulture industry for many years. It has been created to safeguard the interests of those people who spend their lives trying to create clones of native plants for the benefit of the society. The horticulture has been struggling for years trying to set a price on their research and developments of new plants. The patents and licensing only provides greater value to the plant in the marketplace. It is because of this monetary value that breeders and raisers put in efforts to create plants that are almost perfect. Without these efforts, there would be no new innovation one can see in this industry.

The process of patenting and plant licensing is not an easy one, but it is similar to the one required in other items as well and the rewards too are almost the same. Each time a consumer uses the plant, they are required to pay royalty to the creator of the plant. But, this process takes time and can be expensive. Many people spend thousands of dollars in order to protect their creation. Even then there is no sort of guarantee that consumers will like that creation and will pay royalty to use that particular plant.

Just like other patents, plant patents prevent anyone from using the species or reproducing them without paying proper royalties. If you are having trouble knowing how to patent your creation, you can take the help of plant experts to help you out.