US Plant Patent PP4215
Geranium plant
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Patent expired February 14, 1995. This plant is in the public domain — anyone may propagate and sell it.
Twenty years from the filing date would end on March 11, 1997, but this patent ends 756 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
- PP4215
- Filed
- March 11, 1977
- Granted
- February 14, 1978
- Expires
- February 14, 1995
- Inventor
- ANDREA FRANK
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
A geranium of the Fiat type, characterized by its large trusses bearing large, double, pink florets.
Show the legal claimThe single numbered claim as granted — the legal text that defines what this patent covers.
Having thus disclosed my invention, I claim: 1. A new and distinct variety of geranium plant, substantially as shown and described, characterized by its healthy growth; its continuous and exceptionally free blooming habits; its large and double flowered truss; its large florets with double petalage and distinctive color combination.
Read the full patent: US Plant Patent PP4215 in full — the complete specification, every figure, and the file history.