WASHINGTON, March 22, 2011 --The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued certificates of protection to developers of 16 new varieties of seed-reproduced and tuber-propagated plants. They include arugula, bluegrass, fescue, potato, ryegrass, wheat and wildrye.
The Plant Variety Protection Act provides legal protection in the form of intellectual property rights to developers of new varieties of plants.
“A certificate of protection is awarded to an owner of a crop variety after an examination shows that it is new, distinct from other varieties, and genetically uniform and stable through successive generations,” said Administrator Rayne Pegg, Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS). “The public benefits from lower prices due to increased productivity, and from quality food, feed, fiber and other products, which result directly from improved plant varieties.”
The term of protection is 20 years for most crops, and 25 years for trees, shrubs and vines. The owner of a protected variety has exclusive rights to multiply and market the seed of that variety.
The 16 certificates are:
- the Adagio variety of arugula, developed by Purdue Research Foundation, West Lafayette, Ind.;
- the 4-Season variety of Kentucky bluegrass, developed by J.R. Simplot Company, Post Falls, Idaho;
- the Wolfpack II variety of tall fescue, developed by Pure-Seed Testing, Inc., Hubbard, Ore.;
- the FL 2085 variety of potato, developed by Frito-Lay North America, Inc., Plano, Texas;
- the Shiwasuaoba variety of annual ryegrass, developed by Yamaguchi Prefecture, Yamaguchi, Japan;
- the Applaud variety of perennial ryegrass, developed by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, N.J.;
- the Americus variety of perennial ryegrass, developed by Blue Moon Farms, LLC, Lebanon, Ore.;
- the 112303W, W200109G, 112310W, 112306W and 112311W varieties of common wheat, developed by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., Johnston, Iowa;
- the 3120 variety of common wheat, developed by University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc., Athens, Ga.;
- the Striker and Boomer varieties of common wheat, developed by Monsanto Technology, LLC, St. Louis, Mo.;
- the Bozoisky-II* variety of wildrye, developed by U.S. government, as represented by the Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.
*In the United States, seed of this variety (1) shall be sold by variety name only as a class of certified seed and (2) shall conform to the number of generations specified by the owner of the rights (84 STAT. 1542, as amended, 7 U.S.C. 2321 ET SEQ).
AMS administers the Plant Variety Protection Act, which provides time-limited marketing protection to developers of new and distinct seed-reproduced and tuber-propagated plants ranging from farm crops to flowers.
For more information, contact the Plant Variety Protection Office at (301) 504-5518, fax (301) 504-5291 or the Internet at www.ams.usda.gov/pvpo.
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