Propagating Prime-Jan Blackberries

[Robert Hays]

Barefoot gardener, They can prosecute anyone whjo infringes on their patent. NOW, a home gardener that expands their plantings just a few plants would they prosecute? most likely not, but why take a chance? All you have to do is look at when the plants were introduced from the source and it is less than I think 15 years, it is probably still under patent and again why take a chance.

[drew51]

Originally Posted by Robert Hays

Barefoot gardener, They can prosecute anyone who infringes on their patent. NOW, a home gardener that expands their plantings just a few plants would they prosecute? most likely not, but why take a chance? All you have to do is look at when the plants were introduced from the source and it is less than I think 15 years, it is probably still under patent and again why take a chance.

Well that is rather funny. I think the chances are better that monkeys will fly out of my butt.
That they would spend tens of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees to collect the $1.50 you owe them.
Patent infringement is a civil case, not criminal, so they would have to hire the investigators and lawyers.
I had a case where someone owed me 5K, I could not find a lawyer who would take it, because traditionally they take 1/3 of settlement, and 1/3 of 5K was not enough to be worth their time.
Worst case they would send you a cease and desist letter, and if you complied it would be over. it is not worth it to go after you. As far as fines they would first have to prove you violated civil law.
How would they even know? They would not know, nobody watches gardeners to see how they are propagating plants, you could have bought them from Lowes, this is extremely funny!
With that said I think one should respect patents, nobody though is going to come after you.

[Robert Hays]

Drew, I am not going to argue with you about what they will or wont do. My experience is that there was a small farmer that started to sell a few plants at several farmers markets and someone bought one had the DNA from plant found out that it was under patent and he did not have license to propagate, he is currently serving time he lost his farm of 25 acres and the patent owner came to me since I was consulting for the other small farmer, to get started in the berry business. I had to prove to them where every one of my plants came from so they would see I wasn't infringing on their patented plants. I keep records of everything. So you will never know who will or wont show up, just saying. That other farmer didn't have but 25 plants that he bought and still had those and a few more and sold something like 30 plants from suckers.

[barefootgardener]

Originally Posted by Robert Hays

Barefoot gardener, They can prosecute anyone whjo infringes on their patent. NOW, a home gardener that expands their plantings just a few plants would they prosecute? most likely not, but why take a chance? All you have to do is look at when the plants were introduced from the source and it is less than I think 15 years, it is probably still under patent and again why take a chance.

Thank's for the reply Robert. As a backyard gardener I would not live in fear of dividing a few plants if they needed it a few years down the road. We all know how quickly raspberry and blackberry plants spread by runners. They can quickly take over an area, and as a gardener I understand sometimes we need to do what is best for our situation. I tried to dig up some raspberries from an established bed one year, and wanted to move the plants to a new location where they would do better. It was impossible to get all the roots from the first bed and I still ended up with two beds of raspberries, though that was not my intention. They are hard to erradicate. My point is, they were not patented raspberries. But even if they were, I would not live in fear that the patent rasberry police would come after me. I probably would not even remember they were patented to begin with.. Most gardeners who purchase a few patented blackberry bushes at your typical big box store might not even be aware they are patented, or let alone even know what it fully means. Having said all this, I tried to grow blackberries years ago and they did not survive our winters. But, we do have lots of wild blackberries around that thrive and are huge and delicious, if you get to them before the bears do!!

Ginny