US Plant Patent PP3992
Kalanchoe plant
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Patent expired December 21, 1993. This plant is in the public domain — anyone may propagate and sell it.
Twenty years from the filing date would end on September 2, 1995, but this patent ends 620 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
- PP3992
- Filed
- September 2, 1975
- Granted
- December 21, 1976
- Expires
- December 21, 1993
- Inventor
- IRWIN LAWRENCE T
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
1. A new and distinct variety of kalanchoe plant, substantially as herein shown and described, characterized particularly as to novelty by the unique combination of a short, compact and bushy, but upright, habit of growth; flexible foliage of medium size which is topped by a profusion of small reddish colored flowers that are borne on short, stocky flower stems; a distinctive, unusual and attractive Brick Red flower color; the ability to flower in a shorter time than most other kalanchoe varieties; a distinctive and pleasant lemony flower scent; and excellent suitability for potted plant use.
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 kalanchoe plant, substantially as herein shown and described, characterized particularly as to novelty by the unique combination of a short, compact and bushy, but upright, habit of growth; flexible foliage of medium size which is topped by a profusion of small reddish colored flowers that are borne on short, stocky flower stems; a distinctive, unusual and attractive Brick Red flower color; the ability to flower in a shorter time than most other kalanchoe varieties; a distinctive and pleasant lemony flower scent; and excellent suitability for potted plant use.
Read the full patent: US Plant Patent PP3992 in full — the complete specification, every figure, and the file history.