US Plant Patent PP4226
Potentilla
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Patent expired March 21, 1995. This plant is in the public domain — anyone may propagate and sell it.
Twenty years from the filing date would end on March 23, 1997, but this patent ends 733 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
- PP4226
- Filed
- March 23, 1977
- Granted
- March 21, 1978
- Expires
- March 21, 1995
- Assignee
- MONROVIA NURSERY CO
- Inventor
- BARKER DAVID ALAN
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 ornamental, flowering shrub of the genus Potentilla fruticosa, having as its most important novel characteristic the ability to produce flowers which are red in color, a color not heretofore known in this genus. The seasonal development pattern of the new plant is later than that of other Potentilla varieties; both new leaves and flowers appear later in the spring than on other Potentilla, and last longer in the fall; however, very dry weather conditions cause red flowers to fade to a reddish-yellow, but the same flower becomes red again after rain. Another distinguishing characteristic is the foliage, which is a brighter green than in other Potentilla; and grows with more density, and more dwarf size than the seedling relatives.
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 Potentilla, substantially as described and illustrated herein, and capable of producing a red flower, and having the other distinguishing features that the foliage is brighter green, and appears in lower more compact growth than appears in related Potentillas.
Read the full patent: US Plant Patent PP4226 in full — the complete specification, every figure, and the file history.