Rose and Plant patent information

I have had a lot of questions about plant propogation via cuttings, and the legality of it all. It is very tempting to take cuttings for home use, and I had it completely justified, because frankly I really wanted to do it. But I talked to some people who are not plant-people (and therefor not swayed by the temptation part) and from those conversations decided that I should honor plant patents. It isn't the biggest moral conundrum of the century, but I want to have integrity.

I am not an expert by any stretch, and if there are any out there, please correct or clarify anything I post about this. Here is what information I found:

Plant patents last for 20 years, and then they are up. What I have run into when researching which of my roses are still under patent is a lot of years listed next to a particular variety are not accurate in terms of determining if the patent is up.

For example: the Sharifa Asma rose by David Austin is commonly listed under the year of 1983 on most websites. This gives the impression that the patent would be up in 2003. But if you go to the US patent website and search for patent "pp8143" under patent number, you can see that the patent for this rose was applied for on December 6, 1990 and the patent was issued in Febuary of 1993. Plant patents are good from the application date. That means this is an active patent until December 6, 2010.

Just to muddy the water a little bit more, plant patents applied for between June 8, 1995 and May 28, 2000 may be eligible for patent extensions. After that plant patents can be subject to "term adjustments", whatever that means. If maintenance fees are not paid on time, patents can terminate early as well.

I have also discovered that the name plants are patented under are not the same as us lay people call them. For instance, Sharifa Asma is patented under the name "Ausreef". This brings up interesting questions as to if someone was wanting to market this rose after the patent was up if they could use the "Sharifa Asma", and I would guess that this falls under copyright law, which protects intellectual property. Or maybe it is a trademark thing....

Here are some of my resources:

General information Concerning Patents
from the United States Patent and Trademark Office

Patent lookup
Also from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Make sure whenn you search patents to put a "pp" right before the number, with no spaces. You also want to limit the search to "patent number" in field 1.