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The Conard-Pyle Co. recently reached a settlement with a nursery in Central Louisiana found to have infringed its plant patent rights on the popular Knock Out roses. Conard-Pyle required the nursery to immediately destroy all infringing plants and to sign a binding agreement, which carries substantial penalties if the nursery is found doing it again in the future.
According to a press release from Conard-Pyle Co., the nursery was in violation of United States Plant Patent Laws that state that no one may asexually propagate or sell any patented plant without the permission of the patent owner. The nursery found in violation has been warned in the past and Plantwatch, the monitoring program that is helping Conard-Pyle as well as other nurseries to enforce its intellectual property rights, was able to confirm the infringement.
“Illegal propagation is a matter that we take very seriously,” said Jacques Ferare, vice president of license for The Conard-Pyle Co. “As the introducer of The Knock Out Family of Roses, we are committed to ensuring that these plants are grown only by legitimate growers. This not only protects legitimate nurseries, it also guarantees that the consumer is getting the real thing and not a ‘knock off.’ Unfortunately, this is the second time this year that we had to take such an action, and sadly we are working on other cases as well as we speak.”