harveyc

There have been reports of drug companies "discovering" plants in rainforests with the potential of use in drug manufacturing and have patented these plants, thereby restricting even native populations from using them. I don't know how much of that is true. Sometimes legends get made up by people with a bias against corporations, etc.

Plant licenses have become more widely used in the past couple of decades. A plant patent expires in 20 years but a license can last forever. I know of some stone fruits and a citrus subject to plant licenses. In the case of the stone fruits, a fairly large family grower (Jim Ito) and packing house discovered some sports and reproduced these and began marketing them with good results. They then licensed the new varieties to other growers and these growers could not propagate the plants and were required to market all of their production through Jim Ito. This was very restrictive but the individual growers still did very well because of the reputation Ito had developed for the varieties. It was a win-win situation. A recent citrus variety was licensed with similar restrictions to a California packing house. I believe there are table grapes with similar licenses.

I believe for a patent to be enforceable the plant must be labeled. I don't recall seeing a patent number on the Siam Ruby I had purchased. I certainly did not execute a license agreement.

I'm curious how anyone can be demanding a royalty on Siam Ruby.

I'm no lawyer. Just my $.02.

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