Is this illegal?

Hi. I have wondered for a long time about two very simple practises, yet can never get a straight answer from anyone when trying to establish if they are legal, or otherwise. These two things are:

1. Simply purchasing seeds (from a garden centre, via ebay, or wherever), and growing plants from them - then selling these same plants on market stalls, etc. This is something my family have done for many years.

2. Purchasing seeds as above, and then growing plants from them - but then collecting the seeds they produce, bagging them up and selling the seeds via stalls, the internet, etc.

I imagine that collecting any seed from wild plants, or those on other peoples' property, is almost certainly unlawful, but I simply seek answers from anyone who knows, as to whether either of the above practises could potentially be illegal. If the latter is illegal, it begs the question of how one can ever produce seeds for sale, as all plants have to start somewhere and must have "belonged" to someone else at one point, even if we propagate by leaf cuttings, etc.

Thanks.

 

Well it depends:WINK1: I think with wild plants it's got to do with the land owners permission and what plant's they are (such as bluebells which protected an non trade-able in any form without a license I believe) with garden plants the only way it might be illegal is if their is a copyright on the cultivar Plant Breeders' Rights

 

I remember buying a plant many years ago and it said on the label; words along the lines of "this plant must not be propagated without the permision of the plant breeder"!!!, I'm assuming this was referring to anyone thinking of producing plants for re-sale as who's going to know and what harm is it doing if you do it just to increase your own stock???

 

This may help:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1964/14

 

I never understood the problem with Bluebells.

I have them in my garden and, despite giving away/throwing away thousands over the years, still have thousands around the garden - and increasing yearly.
If the "wild population" is in danger, let me know and you can have mine.
I'm sure they probably were from the wild originally - before my time though so don't blame me

 

Doubtful A-a. It's a typical Government umbrella job. Too long to read, too complex to be sensible and too overlapping to make any sense.
Who will read it?
Who will take any notice - other than a Jobsworth official?

 

The above act only makes sense if you are a commercial seller i.e so as not to spread disease.Can you imagine if it was enforced to the letter every WI and scout group and school bring and buy not to mention most nurseries the courts would be full for years to come

 

Shiney has this problem answered to a 'T'

 

Shiney has got it summed up. I think there is more than one type of Plant Breeders rights - but I think even then personal use (what ever that means) is allowed.

If you sell it using the Breeders name, which has been protected. You will almost certainly be breaking the law. Because you are clearly benefiting from the name. Though on a small enough scale no one is going to worry.

However, if you call it a different name I suspect that it is not illegal. There is a good arguement that anything grown from seed cannot be truly identical to its parent, and therefore is a new plant. This is the way that all new plants are created. However there has been a case recently in the USA where sellers of the Geranium "Jolly Bee" were told that they must sell it under the name "Rozanne", which was registered by a different organisation, because it was found to be genetically the same.

 

"If you sell it using the Breeders name, which has been protected. You will almost certainly be breaking the law. Because you are clearly benefiting from the name. Though on a small enough scale no one is going to worry." (from PeterS)

When I was toying with the idea of opening up a small nursery, I asked a couple of local nurserymen for advice and got onto PBR. One of them had been led to believe that a large wholesale organisation used the services of an outside contractor to scour the web for infringements and did act if any cases arose. Heresay maybe.......

The safest way is to buy seed trade if you are selling, but it is clearly a matter of scale.

Cuttings are even more of a minefield though as they do come true. The point to remember as a solicitor put it to me is that the plant itself comes under intellectual property law, the name is trademark law.

As everyone says though, it has to be a matter of scale really.

 

As I recall:

If it is a named cultivar, it is probably protected under Plant Breeders Rights, so it would technically be illegal to propagate and sell it without permission from the breeder.
With species plants, it's not a problem.

So for example you can sell Choisya ternata no problem.

But selling Choisya ternata 'Sundance' without permission is illegal.

 

If it is illegal i would just do it anyway who cares the prisons are full

 

It's your (full?) pockets they'll be going for, not jailing you.

Something related to this I've heard of is, (maybe not using the right 'terms') is those with 'plant breeders rights' preventing the commercial sale of the fruits from those plants you've legitimately grown from legit bought seed. Or perhaps that's another restriction?