Distinct variety of Philodendron plant

PUBLIC DOMAIN

Patent expired August 9, 1994. This plant is in the public domain — anyone may propagate and sell it.

Twenty years from the filing date would end on October 4, 1996, but this patent ends 787 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

PP4090

Filed

October 4, 1976

Granted

August 9, 1977

Expires

August 9, 1994

Inventor

MCCOLLEY ROBERT H

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

There is disclosed herein, a Philodendron plant ("King of Spades") particularly characterized by the contrasting red and green colors of the leaves in both immature and mature state, some of the outstanding characteristics being the hastate leaf shape which gives a more open look to the whole plant while being more compact and having a higher gloss to the leaves, the glossy bronze red color of the sheath covering as the leaf opens, the dark red sheath thereafter curling back and hanging on to the stem for long periods of time, together with superior disease resistance to bacterial soft rot and shot-gun fungus.

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 Philodendron plant substantially as herein disclosed, characterized as to novelty by its superior growth, resistance to shot-gun fungus and bacterial soft rot, glossy bronze red and green color contrasts in immature and mature leaves, the hastate shape of the leaves, the glossy bronze red color of the sheath covering with its tendency to curl back and hang on to the stem for long periods of time.

Read the full patent: US Plant Patent PP4090 in full — the complete specification, every figure, and the file history.