US Plant Patent PP4116
Almond tree
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Patent expired September 27, 1994. This plant is in the public domain — anyone may propagate and sell it.
Twenty years from the filing date would end on November 10, 1996, but this patent ends 775 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
- PP4116
- Filed
- November 10, 1976
- Granted
- September 27, 1977
- Expires
- September 27, 1994
- Inventor
- REYNOLDS SAMUEL M
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
An almond tree which is of medium size, dense, vigorous, spreading, abundantly foliated with medium size, acuminate, acutely pointed leaves having a crenate, finely serrate margin, and alternate, globose glands on the petiole, blooms heavily with white flowers, and regularly heavily bears large, well-distributed nuts having a medium size kernel.
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 variety of almond tree, substantially as illustrated and described, which is of medium size, dense, vigorous, spreading, abundantly foliated with medium size, acuminate, acutely pointed leaves having a crenate, finely serrate margin, and alternate, globose glands on the petiole, blooms heavily with white flowers, and regularly heavily bears large, well-distributed nuts having a medium size kernel; the variety being particularly characterized, in comparison to the Nonpareil, by sturdier branches, denser growth, more upright tree structure, a blooming period about one week later, less pre-harvest nut drop and easier harvest detachment, a harvest period about a week later, higher crack-out of kernels, and kernels which are more plump.
Read the full patent: US Plant Patent PP4116 in full — the complete specification, every figure, and the file history.