U.S. Utility Patent U.S. PVP Certificate
Authority United States Patent and Trademark Office United States Plant Variety Protection Office
What can be protected Any sexually or asexually reproduced plant, including tuber –propagated plants, including plant parts and F1 hybrids; includes protection for inbreds, hybrids and cultivars. Any sexually or asexually reproduced or tuber-propagated plant.
Requirements New, useful and nonobvious. New, distinct, uniform and stable.
Bar date The claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention; or the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.

EXCEPTIONS.—

(1) DISCLOSURES MADE 1 YEAR OR LESS BEFORE THE EFFECTIVE FILING DATE OF THE CLAIMED INVENTION.—A disclosure made 1 year or less before the effective filing date of a claimed invention shall not be prior art to the claimed invention under subsection (a)(1) if-(A) the disclosure was made by the inventor or joint inventor or by another who obtained the subject matter disclosed directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor; or (B) the subject matter disclosed had, before such disclosure, been publicly disclosed by the inventor or a joint inventor or another who obtained the subject matter disclosed directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor.

 Variety must not have been sold, offered or advertised for sale for more than 1 year in the U.S. prior to the date filing for a U.S. PVP or if seed has only been sold outside the U.S., you have 4 years from the first sale in a country outside the U.S. for most crops, and 6 years from the first sales in a country outside the U.S. for a tree or vine.
Seed or plant deposit A deposit of 2500 seeds must be made with an appropriate USPTO-approved depository should be made prior to filing an application. A deposit of 3000 untreated seeds or tissue must be made with the NCGRP or Bigelow depository; With the application for a tuber propagated variety, a declaration that a viable cell culture will be deposited in a public depository approved by the Commissioner and will be maintained for the duration of the certificate; or with the application for a hybrid from self-incompatible parents, a declaration that a plot of vegetative material for each parent will be established in a public depository approved by the Commissioner and will be maintained for the duration of the certificate. The deposit can be sent with the application or within 90 days of the application filing date.
Term Subject to the payment of fees under this title, such grant shall be for a term beginning on the date on which the patent issues and ending 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, if the application contains a specific reference to an earlier filed application or applications under section 120, 121, or 365(c), from the date on which the earliest such application was filed. Generally, 20 years from the date of issue of the certificate in the United States, or in the case of a tree or vine, the term of the plant variety protection shall expire 25 years from the date of issue of the certificate.
Rights An owner of a patent can prevent any third party from making, using, offering for sale, and selling, the patented invention, or importing the patented invention into the United States; if the invention is a process, the right to exclude others from using, offering for sale or selling throughout the United States, or importing into the United States, products made by that process. Without explicit consent from the owner, a third party is prohibited from: selling, marketing, offering, delivering, consigning, exchanging, exposing the variety for sale and prohibited from soliciting an offer to buy the variety or transfer or possess it in any way.  A third party is also prohibited from importing or exporting the variety, sexually multiplying it, propagating it by tuber, using the variety in producing (as distinguished from developing) a hybrid, or conditioning the variety for the purpose of propagation.
Exemptions None Includes research, saved-seed exemptions, using variety to breed a new variety.