African violet plant

PUBLIC DOMAIN

Patent expired January 17, 1995. This plant is in the public domain — anyone may propagate and sell it.

Twenty years from the filing date would end on November 30, 1996, but this patent ends 683 days earlier — a terminal disclaimer gives term back. A source that calculates twenty years from filing would tell you this plant is still protected when it is already free.

The record

Patent number

PP4189

Filed

November 30, 1976

Granted

January 17, 1978

Expires

January 17, 1995

Inventor

HOLTKAMP REINHOLD

No cultivar name of record

This patent does not name the plant, and for its era that is ordinary rather than an omission. Before about 1980, breeders frequently patented a plant without giving it a cultivar name at all — the grant identified it by its number, its parentage and a written description of the flower and foliage. Most plant patents from the 1930s to the 1970s have no name in them.

Nothing here is missing from our records: the patent itself states no name. Where one exists we show it, and we do not invent one.

Abstract

This invention relates to a novel african violet plant which bears relatively large, unfading violet-blue blossoms over a long period of time.

Show the legal claimThe single numbered claim as granted — the legal text that defines what this patent covers.

I claim: 1. A new and distinct cultivar of african violet known by the cultivar name New York and particularly characterized as to uniqueness by the combined characteristics of intensive violet-blue flower color which doesn't fade; relatively large flower size; strong and upright stems; compact growth habit; medium green leaves; long blooming period, and the saleability of the plant after the first flash of flowers.

Read the full patent: US Plant Patent PP4189 in full — the complete specification, every figure, and the file history.