Washington, DC, USA
November 8, 2010

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued certificates of protection to developers of 15 new varieties of seed-reproduced and tuber-propagated plants. They include brome, buffalograss and potato.

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 as the recipient of lower prices from increased productivity, and from quality food, feed, fiber and other products, that 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 15 certificates are:

• the Cache* variety of meadow brome, developed by U.S. Government, as represented by the Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.;
• the Tech Turf I* variety of buffalograss, developed by Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas;
• the AC Stampede Russet variety of potato, developed by Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, College Station, Texas/Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, Alberta, Canada;
• the Blazer Russet variety of potato, developed by University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho;
• the Red Lady variety of potato, developed by Saka-Ragis PFlanzenzucht GbR, Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany;
• the Prospect variety of potato, developed by Cavendish Farms Corporation, Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada;
• the Voyager and Mozart varieties of potato, developed by HZPC Holland B.V., Joure, The Netherlands;
• the FL 2053 variety of potato, developed by Frito-Lay North America, Inc., Plano, Texas;
• the LADY JO variety of potato, developed by C. Meijer B.V., Kruiningen, The Netherlands;
• the Cabaret variety of potato, developed by Cygnet Potato Breeders Ltd., Kinross, Scotland; and
• the TIZIA, JELLY, Belana and ELFE varieties of potato, developed by EUROPLANT Pflanzenzucht GmbH, Lüneburg, Germany.

* In the United States, seed of this variety shall be sold by variety name only as a class of certified seed and 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. 

Website: http://www.ams.usda.gov/pvpo

Published: November 8, 2010