Mericloning Neos/ Illegal or Culturally Prohibited

[Shoreguy]

I’ve heard various reports about this.

What is actually the case?

For sterile varieties such as N Shunkyuden, is a pass given or are they only propagated by division? The latter seems unlikely due to their moderate price.

[Ray]

Why would it be illegal?

[Shoreguy]

Ray,

It is financially advantageous because it keeps prices higher on existing stock by preventing the market being flooded with cheap imitations.

Same reasoning applies to making illegal the selling of counterfeit Gucci bags, Rolexes,etc.

[Leafmite]

With plants, if they are not patented/patent-pending, you can propagate them. When you buy the plant from a reliable grower, it is always indicated whether it is patented/patent-pending or not. I try to avoid buying patented plants but I have grown sweet corn and a few other annual veggies and fruits that have been patented. I have not bought perennial plants that are patented, though, as I fear I would forget and give away a piece.

[Shoreguy]

Leafmite,

I was referring to Japanese regulations and/or cultural attitude.

[orchidsarefun]

Enforcing a patent infringement must be near impossible as one could argue that the cloned plant wasn't patented and was a spontaneous look alike.

[Shoreguy]

Orchidsarefun,

I am not referring to patented plants resulting from crossing different Neofinetia varieties if any, but to Neofinetias found in nature. Patented plants are protected.

[Orchid Whisperer]

Originally Posted by orchidsarefun

Enforcing a patent infringement must be near impossible as one could argue that the cloned plant wasn't patented and was a spontaneous look alike.

To sum it up: DNA Testing. If you violate a patent, and the patent-holder finds out, it is easy to prove.

This is essentially like intellectual property law.

If someone patents a plant, I follow Leafmite's course of action. If I really want the plant, I will follow the patent-holders rules, and not propagate. To propagate and pretend you didn't is stealing, that is reason enough not to break the law. However, if a plant is patented, I am unlikely to buy it in the first place.

If you search, you can find a patented plant list. I looked up plant patents years ago when I bought a patented Hydrangea for my wife. I've never propagated it. At that time, there were just a few patented orchid hybrids. I suspect the plant patent list stays short because in-fashion plants come and go, and people probably don't keep the patents going forever.

[Hakumin]

Mericloning of Neos is not illegal and I am not aware of any pure Neo cultivars that are patented.

Mericloning however is often seen by Japanese collectors to be a bad thing mostly because of it's potential ability to drastically drop the price of certain expensive sterile varieties.

Mericloning of Neos is not yet very well developed however. I have spoken to several Korean and Japanese breeders regarding this and they have said that mericloning of neos is actually very difficult, and it has not yet been done successfully many times. And those breeders were not aware of any mericlones that have yet been sold into the general market. I know that one breeder in Japan is currently working on some mericlones of Hanamatoi, and the first few have recently bloomed.

All that said, mericloning of plants with chimeral variegation is not such a simple thing. If you try to mericlone a periclinal chimaera such as many fukurin varieties, you won't end up with very many, if any offspring with the same type of variegation. They will all turn out solid green or solid yellow, with perhaps a few shima ones. This is because this type of variegation is caused by the organization of two genetically different cells within the meristem. Without preserving the organization of those cells in the meristem in relation to each other, you don't get the same type of variegation.

Because of this, even if mericloning were to become mainstream with Neos, there will still be some varieties that would still only be propagable via division.

[orchidsarefun]

I have a friend that develops and patents annual/perennial plants. I hadn't realized how cutthroat that business is until he told me about a competitor that allegedly developed a perennial that was exactly the same colour as the patented plant. To cut a long story short, after lawyer intervention, the issue went nowhere as the competitor claimed that they coincidentally followed the exact same developmental path followed by the patented plant. I don't know if plants have unique DNA like us. I'll follow up on that. I know that some orchid breeders do not register their hybrids as this would give a path for seed breeding and would complicate a patent copycat's case through a simple "well name the parents/origin of your copycat". Species are a different story altogether.