US Plant Patent PP4149
Oak tree
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Patent expired November 15, 1994. This plant is in the public domain — anyone may propagate and sell it.
Twenty years from the filing date would end on November 4, 1996, but this patent ends 720 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
- PP4149
- Filed
- November 4, 1976
- Granted
- November 15, 1977
- Expires
- November 15, 1994
- Inventor
- SCHMIDT III J 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
This invention relates to a novel variety of Shumard Oak, distinguished by its immature leaf color which is maroon until late spring or early summer, then turning into green.
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 oak tree substantially as herein shown and described, characterized particularly as to novelty by the maroon coloration of its newly formed leaves which coloration is long-lasting to give the entire tree a distinct maroon appearance until late spring or early summer.
Read the full patent: US Plant Patent PP4149 in full — the complete specification, every figure, and the file history.