How to register a new tomato type

[John F Falzone]

About 15 years ago we found a tomato plant growing in a field....year after year we have grown the plant from seed. We own Cherry Valley Garden Center in Illinois and now have developed the plant to where the yeild is about 26 pounds of 8 oz. tomatoes.....we call the plant Bens Red.......my question is how do I register the plant to protect it from someone else selling it......we sell a couple thousand each year.

[feldon30]

http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/PVPO

[carolyn137]

John, to PVP a tomato variety is not cheap, I'm sure the details are in the link Feldon sent you. But this subject was recently discussed in another thread in this General Discussion area, still on this first page, but I'll link to it here as well.

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=20636

The above may be useful is seeing what PVP means and it's usually occasionally used by hybridizers, and Fred Hempel, who started that thread, is a tomato hybridizer.

Since you don't know the origin of what you found I'm not sure how trying to PVP it would go. And you've been selling plants of it and anyone could save seeds from the fruits of those plants.

But please do read the above link as well, which may help.

[Fred Hempel]

My understanding is that you can only file for a PVP within one year, after you name a variety and sell it under that name.

Actually, I don't file for PVPs, unless someone else wants to pay for them (on a variety we create). We were going to file a PVP for Blush (with Seeds of Change), but in the end we decided not to. It's not cheap.

Getting back value from breeding OP varieties is a tough nut to crack!

I think you still could trademark your variety though, but I think that will run over 1K as well.

[Fusion_power]

I always get a kick out of seeing the charge of $5,150.00 which does not include certain travel and admin costs if they have to come to your growing operation.

DarJones

[travis]

Originally Posted by Fred Hempel

My understanding is that you can only file for a PVP within one year, after you name a variety and sell it under that name.

As in "Goose Creek?"

[Fred Hempel]

I thought Goose Creek was an heirloom?

[travis]

Originally Posted by Fred Hempel

I thought Goose Creek was an heirloom?

Yes, and after reportedly being in circulation for over 150 years, along with regular street vending in Oakland, Mr. Williams failed to obtain the PVP

[Fred Hempel]

Who is Mr. Williams?

[travis]

Jimmy Williams, the heir apparent to the Goose Creek tomato inherited from his Gullah great grandmother.

[Fred Hempel]

I'm lost. With the backstory provided about this heirloom tomato, I don't understand why it was included in a PVP discussion?

[travis]

Mr. Williams attempted to obtain a PVP for Goose Creek but failed.
There have been several discussions of this subject here and elsewhere on the gardening boards.
Sorry I derailed this thread. Merry Christmas.

[Fred Hempel]

Oh! That makes sense.

I Googled "Goose Creek" when I should have known to search Tomatoville!

[frogsleap farm]

Also a 2003 utility patent application for Goose Creek. This is an unlikely candidate for patent protection, not meeting the novel or non-obvious requirements.

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...RS=ABST/tomato

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by frogsleap farm

Also a 2003 utility patent application for Goose Creek. This is an unlikely candidate for patent protection, not meeting the novel or non-obvious requirements.

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...RS=ABST/tomato

That's the link I keep in my faves, ahem.

And I think it was at Garden Web where the claims were torn apart, ripped apart and discarded, even by those who had actually grown Goose Creek.

What Williams first started selling as a vendor was a large pink SMOOTH tomato. And after he gave seeds to Laurel to sell the variety as plants it was a large pink fruited variety. And then it kinda morphed into a red tomato,whether with her or someone once said that Williams himself was then offering seed for a red version, and I think there may well be a thread here at Tville about that b'c I remember asking Corona Barb about what she got from the plant she got from Laurel early on.

I think that Tville article was related to Adam Gleckler and the Goose Creek that was sent to him, and his getting an e-mail back saying he had the wrong Goose Creek seeds. He didn't.

All to say that I was asked to proof a magazine article that was about William's and his Goose Creek, and the main problem is that if you go back to the mid-1800's, or so, as he claimed the age of the variety, there were NO pink SMOOTH varieties known. At the time I touched base with others who had done more research than I had and the major person was Andy Smith, who had written the excellent book on the history of the tomato.

I never knew if my crtique of the article made any difference and I never knew if the article was published and I can't remember now the name of the magazine.