Misplaced Pages

#211788

104-512: Musang King is a Malaysian cultivar (cultivated variety) of durian ( Durio zibethinus ). Prized for its unusual combination of bitter and sweet flavours, Musang King is the most popular variety of durian in both Malaysia and Singapore , where it is known as Mao Shan Wang ( Chinese : 猫山王 ; pinyin : Māo Shān Wáng ) and commands a price premium over other varieties. It is also increasingly popular in China , where it has been dubbed

208-469: A decree by which new and inventive devices had to be communicated to the Republic in order to obtain legal protection against potential infringers. The period of protection was 10 years. As Venetians emigrated, they sought similar patent protection in their new homes. This led to the diffusion of patent systems to other countries. The English patent system evolved from its early medieval origins into

312-424: A "true" cultivar name – the recognized scientific name in the public domain – and a "commercial synonym" – an additional marketing name that is legally protected. An example would be Rosa Fascination = 'Poulmax', in which Rosa is the genus, Fascination is the trade designation, and 'Poulmax' is scientific cultivar name. Because a name that is attractive in one language may have less appeal in another country,

416-453: A company helping another company to create a patented product or selling the patented product which is created by another company. There is also inducement to infringement, which is when a party induces or assists another party in violating a patent. An example of this would be a company paying another party to create a patented product in order to reduce their competitor's market share. This is important when it comes to gray market goods, which

520-424: A component of a cultigen can be accepted as a cultivar if it is recognisable and has stable characters. Therefore, all cultivars are cultigens, because they are cultivated, but not all cultigens are cultivars, because some cultigens have not been formally distinguished and named as cultivars. The Cultivated Plant Code notes that the word cultivar is used in two different senses: first, as a "classification category"

624-436: A constant state of development which makes the naming of such an assemblage as a cultivar a futile exercise." However, retired transgenic varieties such as the fish tomato , which are no longer being developed, do not run into this obstacle and can be given a cultivar name. Cultivars may be selected because of a change in the ploidy level of a plant which may produce more desirable characteristics. Every unique cultivar has

728-796: A cultivar. Some cultivars "come true from seed", retaining their distinguishing characteristics when grown from seed. Such plants are termed a "variety", "selection", or "strain" but these are ambiguous and confusing words that are best avoided. In general, asexually propagated cultivars grown from seeds produce highly variable seedling plants, and should not be labelled with, or sold under, the parent cultivar's name. Seed-raised cultivars may be produced by uncontrolled pollination when characteristics that are distinct, uniform and stable are passed from parents to progeny. Some are produced as "lines" that are produced by repeated self-fertilization or inbreeding or "multilines" that are made up of several closely related lines. Sometimes they are F1 hybrids which are

832-802: A database of new cultivars protected by PBR in all countries. An International Cultivar Registration Authority (ICRA) is a voluntary, non-statutory organization appointed by the Commission for Nomenclature and Cultivar Registration of the International Society of Horticultural Science. ICRAs are generally formed by societies and institutions specializing in particular plant genera such as Dahlia or Rhododendron and are currently located in Europe, North America, China, India, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Puerto Rico. Each ICRA produces an annual report and its reappointment

936-582: A modern vernacular language to distinguish them from botanical epithets. For example, the full cultivar name of the King Edward potato is Solanum tuberosum 'King Edward'. 'King Edward' is the cultivar epithet, which, according to the Rules of the Cultivated Plant Code , is bounded by single quotation marks. For patented or trademarked plant product lines developed from a given cultivar,

1040-413: A name, the first letter of the word "Group" is itself capitalized. Since the 1990s there has been an increasing use of legal protection for newly produced cultivars. Plant breeders expect legal protection for the cultivars they produce. According to proponents of such protections, if other growers can immediately propagate and sell these cultivars as soon as they come on the market, the breeder's benefit

1144-403: A non-obvious inventive step. A patent is requested by filing a written application at the relevant patent office. The person or company filing the application is referred to as "the applicant". The applicant may be the inventor or its assignee. The application contains a description of how to make and use the invention that must provide sufficient detail for a person skilled in the art (i.e.,

SECTION 10

#1732791770212

1248-499: A particular disease. Genetically modified plants with characteristics resulting from the deliberate implantation of genetic material from a different germplasm may form a cultivar. However, the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants notes, "In practice such an assemblage is often marketed from one or more lines or multilines that have been genetically modified. These lines or multilines often remain in

1352-595: A particular part of the plant, such as a lateral branch, or from a particular phase of the life cycle, such as a juvenile leaf, or from aberrant growth as occurs with witch's broom . Plants whose distinctive characters are derived from the presence of an intracellular organism may also form a cultivar provided the characters are reproduced reliably from generation to generation. Plants of the same chimera (which have mutant tissues close to normal tissue) or graft-chimeras (which have vegetative tissue from different kinds of plants and which originate by grafting) may also constitute

1456-417: A patent covers or the "scope of protection". After filing, an application is often referred to as " patent pending ". While this term does not confer legal protection, and a patent cannot be enforced until granted, it serves to provide warning to potential infringers that if the patent is issued, they may be liable for damages. Once filed, a patent application is "prosecuted" . A patent examiner reviews

1560-471: A patent. In the United States, however, only the inventor(s) may apply for a patent, although it may be assigned to a corporate entity subsequently and inventors may be required to assign inventions to their employers under an employment contract. In most European countries, ownership of an invention may pass from the inventor to their employer by rule of law if the invention was made in the course of

1664-538: A plant may be given different selling names from country to country. Quoting the original cultivar name allows the correct identification of cultivars around the world. The main body coordinating plant breeders' rights is the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants ( Union internationale pour la protection des obtentions végétales , UPOV) and this organization maintains

1768-511: A prohibited act that is protected against by the patent. There is also the Doctrine of Equivalents. This doctrine protects from someone creating a product that is basically, by all rights, the same product that is protected with just a few modifications. In some countries, like the United States, there is liability for another two forms of infringement. One is contributory infringement, which is participating in another's infringement. This could be

1872-400: A right to make or use or sell an invention. Rather, a patent provides, from a legal standpoint, the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the patented invention for the term of the patent , which is usually 20 years from the filing date subject to the payment of maintenance fees . From an economic and practical standpoint however, a patent

1976-513: A third party, without authorization from the patentee, makes, uses, or sells a patented invention. Patents, however, are enforced on a national basis. The making of an item in China, for example, that would infringe a US patent, would not constitute infringement under US patent law unless the item were imported into the US. Infringement includes literal infringement of a patent, meaning they are performing

2080-555: A unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its contracting states along with giving owners a 30-month priority for applications as opposed to the standard 12 the Paris Convention granted. A patent application filed under the PCT is called an international application, or PCT application. The steps for PCT applications are as follows: 1. Filing the PCT patent application 2. Examination during

2184-462: A unique name within its denomination class (which is almost always the genus). Names of cultivars are regulated by the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants , and may be registered with an International Cultivar Registration Authority (ICRA). There are sometimes separate registration authorities for different plant types such as roses and camellias. In addition, cultivars may be associated with commercial marketing names referred to in

SECTION 20

#1732791770212

2288-709: A vernacular language. From circa the 1900s, cultivated plants in Europe were recognised in the Scandinavian, Germanic, and Slavic literature as stamm or sorte , but these words could not be used internationally because, by international agreement, any new denominations had to be in Latin. In the twentieth century an improved international nomenclature was proposed for cultivated plants. Liberty Hyde Bailey of Cornell University in New York , United States created

2392-477: A yearly basis. Some countries or regional patent offices (e.g. the European Patent Office ) also require annual renewal fees to be paid for a patent application before it is granted. In the US, patent maintenance fees are due on 3.5, 7.5 and 11.5 anniversaries of the patent issuance. Only ca. 50% of issued US patents are maintained full term. Large corporations tend to pay maintenance fees through

2496-409: Is capitalized (with some permitted exceptions such as conjunctions). It is permissible to place a cultivar epithet after a common name provided the common name is botanically unambiguous. Cultivar epithets published before 1 January 1959 were often given a Latin form and can be readily confused with the specific epithets in botanical names; after that date, newly coined cultivar epithets must be in

2600-506: Is patentable subject matter from country to country, also among WTO member states. TRIPS also provides that the term of protection available should be a minimum of twenty years. Some countries have other patent-like forms of intellectual property , such as utility models , which have a shorter monopoly period. The word patent originates from the Latin patere , which means "to lay open" (i.e., to make available for public inspection). It

2704-419: Is a shortened version of the term letters patent , which was an open document or instrument issued by a monarch or government granting exclusive rights to a person, predating the modern patent system. Similar grants included land patents , which were land grants by early state governments in the US, and printing patents , a precursor of modern copyright . In modern usage, the term patent usually refers to

2808-529: Is any plant that is deliberately selected for or altered in cultivation, as opposed to an indigen ; the Cultivated Plant Code states that cultigens are "maintained as recognisable entities solely by continued propagation". Cultigens can have names at any of many taxonomic ranks, including those of grex , species , cultivar group , variety , form , and cultivar; and they may be plants that have been altered in cultivation, including by genetic modification , but have not been formally denominated. A cultigen or

2912-597: Is better and perhaps more precisely regarded as conferring upon its proprietor "a right to try to exclude by asserting the patent in court", for many granted patents turn out to be invalid once their proprietors attempt to assert them in court. A patent is a limited property right the government gives inventors in exchange for their agreement to share details of their inventions with the public. Like any other property right, it may be sold, licensed, mortgaged , assigned or transferred, given away, or simply abandoned. A patent, being an exclusionary right, does not necessarily give

3016-444: Is considered every four years. The main task is to maintain a register of the names within the group of interest and where possible this is published and placed in the public domain. One major aim is to prevent the duplication of cultivar and Group epithets within a genus, as well as ensuring that names are in accord with the latest edition of the Cultivated Plant Code . In this way, over the last 50 years or so, ICRAs have contributed to

3120-449: Is even more pronounced when the number of patent applications is normalized by the country's population each year, or when the country of origin rather than country of filing is used. For the US, the population-normalized peak in patenting occurred in 1915, and the number of subsequent patents induced per patent has been mostly declining since 1926. A study of 4,512 patents obtained by Stanford University between 1970 and 2020 showed that

3224-726: Is evidence that some form of patent rights was recognized in Ancient Greece in the city of Sybaris , the first statutory patent system is generally regarded to be the Venetian Patent Statute of 1474. However, recent historical research has suggested that the 1474 Statute was inspired by laws in the Kingdom of Jerusalem that granted monopolies to developers of novel silk-making techniques. Patents were systematically granted in Venice as of 1474, where they issued

Musang King - Misplaced Pages Continue

3328-404: Is largely lost. Legal protection for cultivars is obtained through the use of Plant breeders' rights and plant Patents but the specific legislation and procedures needed to take advantage of this protection vary from country to country. The use of legal protection for cultivars can be controversial, particularly for food crops that are staples in developing countries, or for plants selected from

3432-623: Is patentable. Patentable material must be synthetic, meaning that anything natural cannot be patented. For example, minerals, materials, genes, facts, organisms, and biological processes cannot be patented, but if someone were to apply an inventive, non-obvious, step to them to synthesize something new, the result could be patentable. That includes genetically engineered strains of bacteria, as was decided in Diamond v. Chakrabarty. Patentability also depends on public policy and ethical standards. Additionally, patentable materials must be novel, useful, and

3536-436: Is sent by the patent office, or the patent application is granted, which after the payment of additional fees, leads to an issued, enforceable patent. In some jurisdictions, there are opportunities for third parties to bring an opposition proceeding between grant and issuance, or post-issuance. Once granted the patent is subject in most countries to renewal fees to keep the patent in force. These fees are generally payable on

3640-432: Is simply a matter of convenience as the category was created to serve the practical needs of horticulture , agriculture , and forestry . Members of a particular cultivar are not necessarily genetically identical. The Cultivated Plant Code emphasizes that different cultivated plants may be accepted as different cultivars, even if they have the same genome, while cultivated plants with different genomes may be regarded as

3744-488: Is the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property , initially signed in 1883. The Paris Convention sets out a range of basic rules relating to patents, and although the convention does not have direct legal effect in all national jurisdictions, the principles of the convention are incorporated into all notable current patent systems. The Paris Convention set a minimum patent protection of 20 years, but

3848-424: Is the sense of cultivar that is most generally understood and which is used as a general definition. A cultivar is an assemblage of plants that (a) has been selected for a particular character or combination of characters, (b) is distinct, uniform and stable in those characters, and (c) when propagated by appropriate means, retains those characters. Which plants are chosen to be named as cultivars

3952-463: Is therefore only useful for protecting an invention in the country in which that patent is granted. In other words, patent law is territorial in nature. When a patent application is published, the invention disclosed in the application becomes prior art and enters the public domain (if not protected by other patents) in countries where a patent applicant does not seek protection, the application thus generally becoming prior art against anyone (including

4056-440: Is to replace the Latin scientific names on plant labels in retail outlets with appealing marketing names that are easy to use, pronounce, and remember. Marketing names lie outside the scope of the Cultivated Plant Code which refers to them as "trade designations". If a retailer or wholesaler has the sole legal rights to a marketing name then that may offer a sales advantage. Plants protected by plant breeders' rights (PBR) may have

4160-434: Is when a patent owner sells a product in country A, wherein they have the product patented, then another party buys and sells it, without the owner's permission, in country B, wherein the owner also has a patent for the product. With either national or regional exhaustion being the law the in country B, the owner may still be able to enforce their patent rights; however, if country B has a policy of international exhaustion, then

4264-402: The Cultivated Plant Code as "trade designations" (see below). A cultivar name consists of a botanical name (of a genus, species , infraspecific taxon , interspecific hybrid or intergeneric hybrid) followed by a cultivar epithet . The cultivar epithet is enclosed by single quotes; it should not be italicized if the botanical name is italicized; and each of the words within the epithet

Musang King - Misplaced Pages Continue

4368-417: The Cultivated Plant Code . Each ICRA also ensures that new names are formally established (i.e. published in hard copy, with a description in a dated publication). They record details about the plant, such as parentage, the names of those concerned with its development and introduction, and a basic description highlighting its distinctive characters. ICRAs are not responsible for assessing the distinctiveness of

4472-495: The International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP), and not all cultivated plants qualify as cultivars. Horticulturists generally believe the word cultivar was coined as a term meaning " cultivated variety ". Popular ornamental plants like roses , camellias , daffodils , rhododendrons , and azaleas are commonly cultivars produced by breeding and selection or as sports , for floral colour or size, plant form, or other desirable characteristics. Similarly,

4576-553: The Latin names in Linnaeus ' (1707–1778) Species Plantarum (tenth edition) and Genera Plantarum (fifth edition). In Species Plantarum , Linnaeus enumerated all plants known to him, either directly or from his extensive reading. He recognised the rank of varietas (botanical "variety", a rank below that of species and subspecies ) and he indicated these varieties with letters of the Greek alphabet , such as α, β, and λ, before

4680-589: The Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity and its system of Access and Benefit-Sharing . Representatives of Indigenous peoples view the GRATK Treaty as a "first step towards guaranteeing just and transparent access to these resources." Before filing for an application, which must be paid for whether a patent is granted or not, a person will want to ensure that their material

4784-475: The U.S. Congress was passed on April 10, 1790, titled "An Act to promote the progress of useful Arts". The first patent under the Act was granted on July 31, 1790, to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont for a method of producing potash (potassium carbonate). A revised patent law was passed in 1793, and in 1836 a major revision was passed. The 1836 law instituted a significantly more rigorous application process, including

4888-465: The WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge (GRATK Treaty) mandating patent disclosure requirements for patents based on genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge from being granted. The Treaty contemplates revocation for patents incorrectly filed. The treaty, and in particular its planned extension, is seen as complementing

4992-762: The World Trade Organization (WTO) being particularly active in this area. The TRIPS Agreement has been largely successful in providing a forum for nations to agree on an aligned set of patent laws. Conformity with the TRIPS agreement is a requirement of admission to the WTO and so compliance is seen by many nations as important. This has also led to many developing nations, which may historically have developed different laws to aid their development, enforcing patents laws in line with global practice. Internationally, there are international treaty procedures, such as

5096-514: The cultigen , which is defined as a plant whose origin or selection is primarily due to intentional human activity. A cultivar is not the same as a botanical variety , which is a taxonomic rank below subspecies , and there are differences in the rules for creating and using the names of botanical varieties and cultivars. In recent times, the naming of cultivars has been complicated by the use of statutory patents for plants and recognition of plant breeders' rights . The International Union for

5200-415: The etymology and it has been suggested that the word is actually a blend of culti gen and var iety . The neologism cultivar was promoted as "euphonious" and "free from ambiguity". The first Cultivated Plant Code of 1953 subsequently commended its use, and by 1960 it had achieved common international acceptance. The words cultigen and cultivar may be confused with each other. A cultigen

5304-487: The " Hermes of durian". Musang King was originally known as Raja Kunyit , meaning "Turmeric King", a reference to the fruit's turmeric -colored deep yellow flesh. In the 1980s, a man named Tan Lai Fook from Raub, Pahang stumbled upon a Raja Kunyit durian tree in Gua Musang , Kelantan , Malaysia . He brought a branch of the tree back to Raub for grafting, and this new breed attracted other cultivators. The cultivar

SECTION 50

#1732791770212

5408-575: The 18th century through a slow process of judicial interpretation of the law. During the reign of Queen Anne , patent applications were required to supply a complete specification of the principles of operation of the invention for public access. Legal battles around the 1796 patent taken out by James Watt for his steam engine , established the principles that patents could be issued for improvements of an already existing machine and that ideas or principles without specific practical application could also legally be patented. The English legal system became

5512-457: The 1995 edition, it is still widely used and recommended by other authorities. Where several very similar cultivars exist they can be associated into a Group (formerly Cultivar-group ). As Group names are used with cultivar names it is necessary to understand their way of presentation. Group names are presented in normal type and the first letter of each word capitalised as for cultivars, but they are not placed in single quotes. When used in

5616-443: The Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV – French : Union internationale pour la protection des obtentions végétales ) offers legal protection of plant cultivars to persons or organisations that introduce new cultivars to commerce. UPOV requires that a cultivar be "distinct", "uniform", and "stable". To be "distinct", it must have characters that easily distinguish it from any other known cultivar. To be "uniform" and "stable",

5720-835: The UK, substantive patent law is contained in the Patents Act 1977 as amended. In the United States, the Constitution empowers Congress to make laws to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts ...". The laws Congress passed are codified in Title 35 of the United States Code and created the United States Patent and Trademark Office . There is a trend towards global harmonization of patent laws, with

5824-545: The US, plant breeders' rights are sometimes called plant patents , and utility models and Gebrauchsmuster are sometimes called petty patents or innovation patents . The additional qualification utility patent is sometimes used (primarily in the US) to distinguish the primary meaning from these other types of patents. Particular types of patents for inventions include biological patents , business method patents , chemical patents and software patents . Although there

5928-445: The applicant) who might seek patent protection for the invention in those countries. Commonly, a nation or a group of nations forms a patent office with responsibility for operating that nation's patent system, within the relevant patent laws. The patent office generally has responsibility for the grant of patents, with infringement being the remit of national courts. The authority for patent statutes in different countries varies. In

6032-530: The benefits of using each other's patented inventions. Freedom Licenses like the Apache 2.0 License are a hybrid of copyright/trademark/patent license/contract due to the bundling nature of the three intellectual properties in one central license. This can make it difficult to enforce because patent licenses cannot be granted this way under copyright and would have to be considered a contract. In most countries, both natural persons and corporate entities may apply for

6136-473: The botanical variety except in respect to its origin. In that essay, Bailey used only the rank of species for the cultigen, but it was obvious to him that many domesticated plants were more like botanical varieties than species, and that realization appears to have motivated the suggestion of the new category of cultivar . Bailey created the word cultivar . It is generally assumed to be a blend of culti vated and var iety but Bailey never explicitly stated

6240-421: The commercial product name is typically indicated by the symbols "TM" or "®", or is presented in capital letters with no quotation marks, following the cultivar name, as in the following example, where "Bloomerang" is the commercial name and 'Penda' is the cultivar epithet: Syringa 'Penda' BLOOMERANG. Although "cv." has not been permitted by the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants since

6344-400: The course of the 20th and 21st centuries, however, disparity is still prevalent. In the UK, for example, only 8% of inventors were female as of 2015. This can partly be attributed to historical barriers for women to obtain patents, as well as to the fact that women are underrepresented in traditionally "patent-intensive" sectors, particularly STEM sectors. Marcowitz-Bitton et al. argue that

SECTION 60

#1732791770212

6448-496: The cultivar is defined in Article 2 of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (2009, 8th edition) as follows: The basic category of cultivated plants whose nomenclature is governed by this Code is the cultivar. There are two other classification categories for cultigens, the grex and the group . The Code then defines a cultivar as a "taxonomic unit within the classification category of cultivar". This

6552-480: The cultivar must retain these characters in repeated propagation. The naming of cultivars is an important aspect of cultivated plant taxonomy , and the correct naming of a cultivar is prescribed by the Rules and Recommendations of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP, commonly denominated the Cultivated Plant Code ). A cultivar is given a cultivar name, which consists of

6656-654: The establishment of an examination system. Between 1790 and 1836 about ten thousand patents were granted. By the American Civil War about 80,000 patents had been granted. In the US, married women were historically precluded from obtaining patents. While section 1 of the Patent Act of 1790 did refer to "she", married women were unable to own property in their own name and were also prohibited from rights to their own income, including income from anything they invented. This historical gender gap has lessened over

6760-647: The first modern patent system that recognised intellectual property in order to stimulate invention; this was the crucial legal foundation upon which the Industrial Revolution could emerge and flourish. By the 16th century, the English Crown would habitually abuse the granting of letters patent for monopolies . After public outcry, King James I of England (VI of Scotland ) was forced to revoke all existing monopolies and declare that they were only to be used for "projects of new invention". This

6864-630: The foundation for patent law in countries with a common law heritage, including the United States, New Zealand and Australia . In the Thirteen Colonies , inventors could obtain patents through petition to a given colony's legislature. In 1641, Samuel Winslow was granted the first patent in North America by the Massachusetts General Court for a new process for making salt. The modern French patent system

6968-404: The full term, while small companies are more likely to abandon their patents earlier, even though the due fees are ca. 5 times lower for small businesses (microentities). The costs of preparing and filing a patent application, prosecuting it until grant and maintaining the patent vary from one jurisdiction to another, and may also be dependent upon the type and complexity of the invention, and on

7072-510: The gender gap in patents is also a result of internal bias within the patent system. The number of patent applications filed each year has been growing for most countries although not smoothly, and jumps in activity are often observed due to changes in local laws. The high number of patent families for Spain in the 1800s is related to the superior preservation and cataloguing of the data by Spanish Patent and Trademark Office compared to other countries (see 1836 U.S. Patent Office fire ). The US

7176-502: The international phase 3. Examination during the national phase. Alongside these international agreements for patents there was the Patent Law Treaty (PLT). This treaty standardized the filing date requirements, standardized the application and forms, allows for electronic communication and filing, and avoids unintentional loss of rights, and simplifies patent office procedures. Sometimes, nations grant others, other than

7280-415: The invention be exploited in the jurisdiction it covers. Consequences of not working an invention vary from one country to another, ranging from revocation of the patent rights to the awarding of a compulsory license awarded by the courts to a party wishing to exploit a patented invention. The patentee has the opportunity to challenge the revocation or license, but is usually required to provide evidence that

7384-571: The inventor's normal or specifically assigned employment duties, where an invention might reasonably be expected to result from carrying out those duties, or if the inventor had a special obligation to further the interests of the employer's company. Applications by artificial intelligence systems, such as DABUS , have been rejected in the US, the UK, and at the European Patent Office on the grounds they are not natural persons. The inventors, their successors or their assignees become

7488-437: The licensee the right to make, use, sell, or import the claimed invention, usually in return for a royalty or other compensation. It is common for companies engaged in complex technical fields to enter into multiple license agreements associated with the production of a single product. Moreover, it is equally common for competitors in such fields to license patents to each other under cross-licensing agreements in order to share

7592-671: The most significant aspect of the convention is the provision of the right to claim priority : filing an application in any one member state of the Paris Convention preserves the right for one year to file in any other member state, and receive the benefit of the original filing date. Another key treaty is the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and covering more than 150 countries. The Patent Cooperation Treaty provides

7696-399: The patent application to determine if it meets the patentability requirements of that country. If the application does not comply, objections are communicated to the applicant or their patent agent or attorney through an Office action , to which the applicant may respond. The number of Office actions and responses that may occur vary from country to country, but eventually a final rejection

7800-400: The patent owner seeks monetary compensation ( damages ) for past infringement, and seeks an injunction that prohibits the defendant from engaging in future acts of infringement, or seeks either damages or injunction. To prove infringement, the patent owner must establish that the accused infringer practises all the requirements of at least one of the claims of the patent. (In many jurisdictions

7904-488: The patent owner the right to exploit the invention subject to the patent. For example, many inventions are improvements of prior inventions that may still be covered by someone else's patent. If an inventor obtains a patent on improvements to an existing invention which is still under patent, they can only legally use the improved invention if the patent holder of the original invention gives permission, which they may refuse. Some countries have "working provisions" that require

8008-427: The patent owner will have no legal grounds for enforcing the patent in country B as it was already sold in a different country. Patents can generally only be enforced through civil lawsuits (for example, for a US patent, by an action for patent infringement in a United States federal district court), although some countries (such as France and Austria ) have criminal penalties for wanton infringement. Typically,

8112-544: The patent owner, permissions to create a patented product based on different situations that align with public policy or public interest. These may include compulsory licenses, scientific research, and in transit in country. After two decades of drafting, the WIPO 's Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore moved to a Diplomatic Conference in May 2024 and adopted

8216-562: The patent should never have been granted. There are several grounds for challenges: the claimed subject matter is not patentable subject matter at all; the claimed subject matter was actually not new, or was obvious to the person skilled in the art , at the time the application was filed; or that some kind of fraud was committed during prosecution with regard to listing of inventors, representations about when discoveries were made, etc. Patents can be found to be invalid in whole or in part for any of these reasons. Patent infringement occurs when

8320-679: The permission of the other proprietor(s). The ability to assign ownership rights increases the liquidity of a patent as property. Inventors can obtain patents and then sell them to third parties. The third parties then own the patents and have the same rights to prevent others from exploiting the claimed inventions, as if they had originally made the inventions themselves. The grant and enforcement of patents are governed by national laws, and also by international treaties, where those treaties have been given effect in national laws. Patents are granted by national or regional patent offices, i.e. national or regional administrative authorities. A given patent

8424-429: The plant in question. Most ICRAs can be contacted electronically and many maintain web sites for an up-to-date listing. Patents The procedure for granting patents, requirements placed on the patentee, and the extent of the exclusive rights vary widely between countries according to national laws and international agreements. Typically, however, a patent application must include one or more claims that define

8528-690: The procedures under the European Patent Convention (EPC) [constituting the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg)], that centralize some portion of the filing and examination procedure. Similar arrangements exist among the member states of ARIPO and OAPI , the analogous treaties among African countries, and the nine CIS member states that have formed the Eurasian Patent Organization . A key international convention relating to patents

8632-443: The proprietors of the patent when and if it is granted. If a patent is granted to more than one proprietor, the laws of the country in question and any agreement between the proprietors may affect the extent to which each proprietor can exploit the patent. For example, in some countries, each proprietor may freely license or assign their rights in the patent to another person while the law in other countries prohibits such actions without

8736-808: The pungency and stronger perceived taste and smell of the cultivar. Musang King is known for its buttery, thick, bright yellow flesh and robust flavour, with a hint of bitterness. The husk is dusky green and has a distinctive star shape at the bottom. The thorns are pyramidal and not densely packed. Cultivar A cultivar is a kind of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and which retains those traits when propagated . Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting , tissue culture , or carefully controlled seed production. Most cultivars arise from deliberate human manipulation , but some originate from wild plants that have distinctive characteristics. Cultivar names are chosen according to rules of

8840-400: The reasonable requirements of the public have been met by the working of invention. In most jurisdictions, there are ways for third parties to challenge the validity of an allowed or issued patent at the national patent office; these are called opposition proceedings . It is also possible to challenge the validity of a patent in court. In either case, the challenging party tries to prove that

8944-437: The relevant area of technology) to make and use the invention. In some countries there are requirements for providing specific information such as the usefulness of the invention, the best mode of performing the invention known to the inventor, or the technical problem or problems solved by the invention. Drawings illustrating the invention may also be provided. The application also includes one or more claims that define what

9048-468: The relevant country. Although an infringer is generally free to rely on any available ground of invalidity (such as a prior publication , for example), some countries have sanctions to prevent the same validity questions being relitigated. An example is the UK Certificate of contested validity . Patent licensing agreements are contracts in which the patent owner (the licensor) agrees to grant

9152-428: The result of a deliberate repeatable single cross between two pure lines. A few F2 hybrid seed cultivars also exist, such as Achillea 'Summer Berries'. Some cultivars are agamospermous plants, which retain their genetic composition and characteristics under reproduction. Occasionally cultivars are raised from seed of a specially selected provenance – for example the seed may be taken from plants that are resistant to

9256-502: The right granted to anyone who invents something new, useful and non-obvious. A patent is often referred to as a form of intellectual property right, an expression which is also used to refer to trademarks and copyrights , and which has proponents and detractors (see also Intellectual property § The term "intellectual property" ). Some other types of intellectual property rights are also called patents in some jurisdictions: industrial design rights are called design patents in

9360-899: The same cultivar. The production of cultivars generally entails considerable human involvement although in a few cases it may be as little as simply selecting variation from plants growing in the wild (whether by collecting growing tissue to propagate from or by gathering seed). Cultivars generally occur as ornamentals and food crops: Malus ' Granny Smith ' and Malus ' Red Delicious ' are cultivars of apples propagated by cuttings or grafting , Lactuca 'Red Sails' and Lactuca 'Great Lakes' are lettuce cultivars propagated by seeds. Named cultivars of Hosta and Hemerocallis plants are cultivars produced by micropropagation or division. Cultivars that are produced asexually are genetically identical and known as clones ; this includes plants propagated by division , layering , cuttings , grafts , and budding . The propagating material may be taken from

9464-468: The scientific Latin botanical name followed by a cultivar epithet . The cultivar epithet is usually in a vernacular language. The word cultivar originated from the need to distinguish between wild plants and those with characteristics that arose in cultivation, presently denominated cultigens . This distinction dates to the Greek philosopher Theophrastus (370–285 BC), the "Father of Botany", who

9568-436: The scope of protection that is being sought. A patent may include many claims, each of which defines a specific property right. Under the World Trade Organization 's (WTO) TRIPS Agreement , patents should be available in WTO member states for any invention, in all fields of technology , provided they are new , involve an inventive step , and are capable of industrial application . Nevertheless, there are variations on what

9672-443: The scope of the patent may not be limited to what is literally stated in the claims, for example due to the doctrine of equivalents .) An accused infringer has the right to challenge the validity of the patent allegedly being infringed in a counterclaim . A patent can be found invalid on grounds described in the relevant patent laws, which vary between countries. Often, the grounds are a subset of requirements for patentability in

9776-479: The stability of cultivated plant nomenclature. In recent times many ICRAs have also recorded trade designations and trademarks used in labelling plant material, to avoid confusion with established names. New names and other relevant data are collected by and submitted to the ICRA and in most cases there is no cost. The ICRA then checks each new epithet to ensure that it has not been used before and that it conforms with

9880-431: The university's patenting activity plateaued in the 2010s. Incidentally, only 20% of Stanford patents in that dataset produced a positive net income for the university, while the rest was a net loss. Similar declines have been noted not only for the number of patents, but also for other measures of innovation output. Several hypotheses have been proposed as explanations for the observed decline: A patent does not give

9984-432: The varietal name, rather than using the abbreviation "var." as is the present convention. Most of the varieties that Linnaeus enumerated were of "garden" origin rather than being wild plants. In time the need to distinguish between wild plants and those with variations that had been cultivated increased. In the nineteenth century many "garden-derived" plants were given horticultural names, sometimes in Latin and sometimes in

10088-428: The wild and propagated for sale without any additional breeding work; some people consider this practice unethical . The formal scientific name of a cultivar, like Solanum tuberosum 'King Edward', is a way of uniquely designating a particular kind of plant. This scientific name is in the public domain and cannot be legally protected. Plant retailers wish to maximize their share of the market and one way of doing this

10192-414: The word cultivar in 1923 when he wrote that: The cultigen is a species, or its equivalent, that has appeared under domestication – the plant is cultigenous. I now propose another name, cultivar, for a botanical variety, or for a race subordinate to species, that has originated under cultivation; it is not necessarily, however, referable to a recognized botanical species. It is essentially the equivalent of

10296-406: The world's agricultural food crops are almost exclusively cultivars that have been selected for characters such as improved yield, flavour, and resistance to disease, and very few wild plants are now used as food sources. Trees used in forestry are also special selections grown for their enhanced quality and yield of timber . Cultivars form a major part of Liberty Hyde Bailey 's broader group,

10400-472: Was created during the Revolution in 1791. Patents were granted without examination since inventor's right was considered as a natural one. Patent costs were very high (from 500 to 1,500 francs). Importation patents protected new devices coming from foreign countries. The patent law was revised in 1844 – patent cost was lowered and importation patents were abolished. The first Patent Act of

10504-612: Was incorporated into the Statute of Monopolies (1624) in which Parliament restricted the Crown's power explicitly so that the King could only issue letters patent to the inventors or introducers of original inventions for a fixed number of years. The Statute became the foundation for later developments in patent law in England and elsewhere. Important developments in patent law emerged during

10608-477: Was keenly aware of this difference. Botanical historian Alan Morton noted that Theophrastus in his Historia Plantarum ( Enquiry into Plants ) "had an inkling of the limits of culturally induced ( phenotypic ) changes and of the importance of genetic constitution" ( Historia Plantarum , Book 3, 2, 2 and Causa Plantarum , Book 1, 9, 3). The International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants uses as its starting point for modern botanical nomenclature

10712-562: Was named after Gua Musang, its place of origin. Musang King has been assigned the cultivar ID D197. The Chinese name, literally "Cat Mountain King", may be either a phonetic rendering of musang or a reference to its Malay meaning, the cat-like Asian palm civet . In 2017, Musang King became the first variety of durian to have its genome sequenced . The sequencing showed upregulation of pathways related to sulfur , lipid oxidation and ethylene when compared to both other fruits and other durian cultivars like Mon Thong, which correlates with

10816-596: Was the World's leader in terms of patent families filed between 1900 and 1966, when Japan took over. Since 2007 PR China leads. However, in most technologically advanced countries (see, for example, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, the UK in the figure on the right, as well as in Poland ), the total (i.e. regardless of the priority/inventors' country) number of patent families filed there have been declining in absolute numbers since c.  1970s –1980s. The decline

#211788