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The Patent Garden

US Plant Patent PP4008

Rose plant

PUBLIC DOMAIN

Patent expired January 4, 1994. This plant is in the public domain — anyone may propagate and sell it.

Twenty years from the filing date would end on March 29, 1996, but this patent ends 815 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
PP4008
Filed
March 29, 1976
Granted
January 4, 1977
Expires
January 4, 1994
Inventor
WEEKS O L

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 rose plant of the hybrid tea class, substantially as herein shown and described, characterized particularly as to novelty by the unique combination of an extremely vigorous habit of growth; production of large flowers of exhibition form and which are mostly borne singly on exceptionally long stems; a distinctive and attractive pink and white flower color blend; and a strong flower fragrance.

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 rose plant of the hybrid tea class, substantially as herein shown and described, characterized particularly as to novelty by the unique combination of an extremely vigorous habit of growth; production of large flowers of exhibition form and which are mostly borne singly on exceptionally long stems; a distinctive and attractive pink and white flower color blend; and a strong flower fragrance.

Read the full patent: US Plant Patent PP4008 in full — the complete specification, every figure, and the file history.