§2401 Definitions and Rules of Construction

Summary

Defines key words used in the chapter and sets rules about when sales or descriptions do not count as exploiting a plant variety. The key terms are: asexually reproduced — made from plant parts (not seed), like cuttings, grafts, tissue culture, or root division; basic seed — seed planted to grow certified or commercial seed; breeder — the person who creates or develops a variety (if an agent acts, the principal is the breeder; not someone who just rediscovers a known variety); essentially derived variety — one mostly from an earlier variety that stays true to the original’s main traits but is clearly different, and can come from mutation, selection, backcrossing, genetic modification, or similar methods; kind — one or more related species known by a common name (for example, soybean, flax, radish); seed (for tuber-propagated varieties) — the tuber or part of a tuber used to grow more plants; sexually reproduced — made by seed (not by tubers); tuber propagated — grown from tubers or parts of tubers; United States — the United States, its territories and possessions, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; variety — a group of plants within the same lowest-ranked botanical category that can be told apart by at least one inherited trait and treated as a unit for propagation (may be shown by seed, transplants, plants, tubers, tissue-culture plantlets, or similar material). Sales or uses that do not count as exploiting a variety include selling harvested material from testing or experiments, or selling material to increase a variety when done as part of testing or increasing the crop for the breeder. Selling hybrid seed is treated as selling the harvested material of the parent varieties. Filing for legal protection or entry in an official variety register makes the variety public knowledge from the date of the application if it leads to protection or registration. A variety can be told apart from another by one or more identifiable traits (including traits shown by processing or product use). A variety is also public knowledge if it is described in a U.S. technical publication that lists the main distinguishing traits, or by other means.