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Well Chick,
One question that comes to mind is--------If the Plant Patent system is as good
and as cheap as you make it out to be, why hasn't anybody gotten one other than
the big multi-million dollar nurseries like Walters and Shady Oaks? Why haven't
you gotten one? It seems to me that if it was as good as you say that a patent
for 'Satisfaction' would have returned much more than the $245 that you spent
for it.
If you're going to start living in the real world, maybe you can explain the
lack of people applying for Plant Patents if they're the answer you make them
out to be. The Plant Patent exists to offer protection to the plant
breeder. How come, if you agree that most hybridizers are unhappy with the money
they've received for their plants, none, repeat none of them decided to get
Plant Patents? It's a system that doesn't work, that's why. Eventually
systems that don't work get replaced with ones that do. It has happened in other
countries, and sooner or later it will probably happen here.
I'm not proposing new laws or trying to get them changed. I'm just talking about
where things stand today and where they might go in the future. Get a
grip. I'm not writing Congress suggesting that they tax you guys more. You
know as well as I that if such laws were passed here, you would just pass on the
whole price of the royalty to your customers, and that you wouldn't lose any
profit along the way. From what I understand, those Breeders' Rights laws make
it easy to register your plant, so easy that most people would have no trouble
doing it. The situation would change from one in which nobody has a Plant Patent
to one in which most people had BR agreements. The hybridizer would have the
sort of protection that writers, photographers, artists, musicians, and
inventors have. Not the imaginary protection of the current system. The only
people who prefer a dog-eat-dog way of doing business are the ones who been able
to eat a few dogs along the way.
To Joe Halinar:
What is happening in the daylily world? Does anyone get Plant Patents? Is there
still a market for $100+ plants, or is tissue culture changing the scene as
dramatically is it is in hosta?
To Ray Wiegand:
I
don't know how they do it in the countries that have Breeders' Rights laws, but
the royalty is probably paid at the wholesale level. That would make the most
sense. If a retailer like Chick ordered a flat of your new plant from Q and Z,
say, The price he paid would include the royalty which Qand Z would then pay to
you.
....................Bill Meyer
I don't really know where we are, but I do know that I can't control it,
I can't get new laws passed, I can't hide from the tc labs,
so I just
have to live with the real world.
Is $50.00 reasonable for a plant that you can buy for $5.00.
Nope. But $50.00 is reasonable if I'm the only one who has the plant,
and that's what I want to charge for it, and you can buy it if you like
or not. If I want to charge $50.00 for my next introduction, or
$10.00, or $100.00, that's a business decision that I have to
make. One thing you fail to consider is that
I don't just sell to
the people on this forum. If I make the investment to have a plant
tc'd privately, I figure that I have two years to sell
it before anyone
else can get the plant, have it propagated, get it back and grow it on to
sell it. Yes, I know that some people start
selling a plant as
soon as they see that it's going to be tc'd, before they've even seen a
plant. So what? These people don't
significantly affect my
sales. Most of my customers don't even know they exist and half of
those that do wouldn't buy anything from
them again. And if
reputable growers like Ran buy the plant, he'll grow it on for a reasonable
time before he sells it, and if he wants
to lower the price, that's what
competition does. Ran has no reason to sell the plant at a price that
is not profitable.
You say plant prices are headed to reasonable levels. Is there some
problem with that? What about the poor shmuck that pays me
big
bucks for a plant and then sees it two or three years later for
$15-25. Well, the first thing he or she can do is walk out in the
garden and see a plant with 8-10 eyes or more by the time the cheaper
plant arrives, and compare that to plant they're going to get. For
those that want to wait for the prices to come down, it's no secret that
they will. I seldom have trouble selling plants the first year they
are available if they are good
plants. For some reason, it seems to me
that you think that when the competition gets ahold of my plant that my
business dies. As Tony Avent once said to me, I don't care about the
competition. There is no suggested retail price for hostas. Obviously,
we all look at what our competition does when we set our prices, but I
decide how much to charge for my plants and my customers decide whether I
made the right decision. If someone else sells for less, then I have
to decide whether to drop my price or not. It seems to me that that is
the way business works.
Actually, I think $15-20 is a reasonable
price for a plant procuced by tc, and if you look through my catalog, that's
what I charge for most of new plants that I get from the labs. I don't
have any firm rules on pricing, but generally I charge more for plants that
are streaked, because I usually consider only a small percentage of the
plants I get from tc to have enough streaking to be worth selling. I
charge more for plants that I have put into tc for myself because I took the
risk and made the investment, and because few people offer the plants and I
can charge whatever I think is the right price for the plant. If I
charge $100 for a plant, it's because I have control over it and I doubt
very much that you are going to see it the next year for
$15.00.
First of all, you are not going to change
the law. Get real. Secondly, how can the big bad nurseries have
all the power if you have the plant? If they won't give you anything
for it, then you have to find someone that will. If you can't find
anyone, maybe it's not worth what you think it is. You can't force
someone to give you money for a plant if they don't want
to.
I wish someone who knows exactly what's
involved in patenting would help out here, because I haven't done it.
But I have looked at the patent applications of others, you can see them on
the Patent Office site, and it doesn't look that daunting to me. There
are a number of fees involved, and I didn't go through them all to see what
the final total would be, but the basic filing fee for a plant patent
appears to be $245.00.
No there isn't. Also, if you wanted
to give them away, I couldn't do anything about it. What's the
point? First of all, as we've already determined, there is no
justification for selling a plant that can be tc'd for $200. Secondly,
I've already explained to you why I don't care. Unless there is
somebody out there that wants to run me out of business just because they
don't like me, which is, I admit, a definite possiblilty, there is no reason
for them to price a plant at a level that is not profitable. If I have
a good plant that warrants 20,000 copies, and I didn't arrange for it to be
tc'd myself before Mr. Big Nursery even heard of it, then I am stupid and
don't deserve to make any money. We are not working in a vacumn
here. It's not like you have to sit back and wait for people to do
things to you. My God Man! Get some
backbone!
No, I would be much happier with a system
that said nobody could sell hostas but me. But I just don't have the
political clout to make that happen, so I learn to do business with the
system the way it is. Nobody owes me anything. If I can't make
it doing this, I have to do something else. What you forget is that if
I can't make it, it's because someone else has figured out a better way of
doing it, and that option is open to me too. If I can't adjust, I
deserve to be dead meat.
The same laws that protect them are
available to you at the Patent Office. You say that if a breeder
patents a plant that the big nurseries will just produce a different
plant. What is it in your proposed new law that changes that.
Are the tc labs going to required to pay for the plants whether they want to
or not?
OK,
your turn, YIS. There it is. Reply if
you dare.
Chick
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