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The Patent Garden

US Plant Patent PP4138

Rose plant

PUBLIC DOMAIN

Patent expired November 1, 1994. This plant is in the public domain — anyone may propagate and sell it.

Twenty years from the filing date would end on October 21, 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
PP4138
Filed
October 21, 1976
Granted
November 1, 1977
Expires
November 1, 1994
Inventor
WILLIAMS J BENJAMIN

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 winter-hardy grandiflora rose variety having long-lasting, iridescent, orange-red blossoms.

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 grandiflora class, substantially as shown and described, characterized particularly by recurrent flowers borne singly and in sprays of 3 to 5 blooms having brilliant orange-red cast at the inner petals with iridescent quality on an upright compact plant of above average winter hardiness and disease resistance.

Read the full patent: US Plant Patent PP4138 in full — the complete specification, every figure, and the file history.