Washington, DC, USA
November 8, 2011

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued certificates of protection to developers of 43 new varieties of seed-reproduced and tuber-propagated plants. They include bean, fescue, lettuce, pea, potato, ryegrass and soybean.

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 David Shipman, 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 44 certificates are:

• the Furano variety of garden bean, developed by Syngenta Crop Protection AG, Basel, Switzerland;
• the 460001G variety of cotton, developed by Bayer CropScience LP, Research Triangle Park, N.C.;
• the FM 9068F variety of cotton, developed by Cotton Seed International Proprietary Limited (ACN 065 327 915) Wee Waa, Australia, Bayer CropScience GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, Germany;
• the Soil Guard variety of hard fescue, developed by Pure-Seed Testing, Inc., Hubbard, Ore.;
• the Farnsworth 71 and Pinochle varieties of lettuce, developed by Harris Moran Seed Company, Modesto, Calif.;
• the CEB-Montech 4152* variety of pea, developed by Nickerson International Research SNC, Chappes, France;
• the Polyphemus variety of pea, developed by Seminis Vegetable Seeds, Inc., Oxnard, Calif.;
• the Augusta variety of potato, developed by EUROPLANT Pflanzenzucht GmbH, Lüneburg, Germany;
• the Gray Star and Grand Slam 2 varieties of perennial ryegrass, developed by Pure-Seed Testing, Inc., Hubbard, Ore.;
• the Acappella variety of perennial ryegrass, developed by Blue Moon Farms, LLC, Lebanon, Ore.;
• the Fiesta 4 variety of perennial ryegrass, developed by Pickseed USA, Inc., Albany, Ore., and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, N.J.;
• the XB31AQ10, XB31A10, XB30V10, XR28K10, XB37Q10, XB29J10, XB28J10, XB16Q10, XB08U10, 94Y22, 94Y82, 92Y74, 92Y73, 91Y61, 92Y12, 90Y90, RJS19004, RJS46001, RJS35006, RJS08001, RJS05002, RJS04001, RJS27004, RJS27002, RJS37005, RJS26003, RJS19005, RJS29004 and RJS12002 varieties of soybean, developed by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., Johnston, Iowa; and
• the D5365424 variety of soybean, developed by Monsanto Technology L.L.C., St. Louis.

*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.

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.
 

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

Published: November 8, 2011