RE: Tattoo
Norm:
>I have heard from other growers that they will not carry patented
>plants because they can't propagate them to sell. But, if you
>propagate them, can you just send a royalty to the patent holder and
>sell them?
The patent on a plant is really no different then, say, a copyright on
a song CD. I can't just duplicate a CD and then pay the copyright
owner a royality. You first have to have a license to propagate the
plant. What aggrement you can work out with the patent owner is open
to whatever can be worked out. Some patent holders will only allow a
limited number of growers to propagate the plant, some will charge a
fee per plant, some charge a fee based on acreage, some just charge a
fixed fee and some don't bother to enforce their patents. It's
totally up to the free market and what two parties can agree to. By
choice I don't grow any patented plants that I know are patented
unless it is strickly for landscape use. Often times the propagation
fees are too excesive. For example, the propagation fee for the ugly
Black Eyed Stella daylily was $1.80 per plant. That brings a daylily
that would otherwise wholesale for about $1 to $1.50 up to over $3.00.
A wholesale nursery that puts a 85 cent Stella De Oro daylily into a
gallon pot will wholesale that plant to a landscape contractor for
about $3.75 to $4. Add $1.80 to that wholesale bareroot price and the
contractor will end up paying $6.95 to $9.95. The contractor is going
to double the price to his customer (the home owner), so you can see
that even a modest propagation fee can significently add to the final
cost of a daylily, and similarly to a hosta. Go down to any of the
big chain stores like WalMart and you don't find many patented plants,
except maybe fruit trees. Many wholesale growers just don't want to
have to deal with patents, and the big chain stores don't want to pay
the extra cost.
Joe Halinar
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