How have patents affected your propagation efforts?

I'm curious if anyone out there feels stifled by the rash of plant
patents appearing lately.

One of my concerns is that I'll come across a plant that I find interesting
somewhere, take a cutting without knowing the cultivar name or that it's
patented, and then resell it later only to be sued because it looks like
some obscure patented plant.

It's going to be the same kind of deal that we saw with Geranium 'Jolly
Bee' and G. 'Rozanne', and I fear that it's going to stifle discovery of
valuable new cultivars.

On the other hand, I think we're also going to see lots and lots of more
similar plants appear as breeders create their own version of Endless
Summer [TM] or Mango Meadowbrite [TM] to circumvent patent and trademark
restrictions.

Comments?

Chris

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