It’s genetically similar but even the genes of my two parents would be different than the other person that used the same two cultivars. Isn’t that right?
1 Like
Yes, and has been done many times before.
3 Likes
The only limitation for selling it is if your resulting new variety is desirable enough for people to want to buy it.
3 Likes
Yes, but why would anyone buy it?
Maybe it tastes good and gets marketed better. Idk.
1 Like
There are literally hundreds of apples that taste good. Another good one is not going to gain any market share at all.
I can’t imagine how anyone could market an apple better than Honeycrisp has been marketed.
1 Like
First and foremost if you’re gonna grow out seedlings just select for something that makes you love it. If you love it then chances are someone else will as well.
1 Like
Maybe because you developed something unique like a good tasting red fleshed apple?
2 Likes
Easy, by not screwing up the trademark. They lost the trademark rights because they used the same name on the patent.
How has that hurt Honeycrisp marketing?
There are already tasty red fleshed apples. They are not being marketed very well. They have almost no market share. New ones won’t either.
probably.
Most countries use the UPOV system or similar.
- The criteria for new varieties to be protected: novelty, distinctness, uniformity, and stability.
If your offspring meets the above criteria (except seed stability in the case of apples) You can name it, get it to be tested and than protect it (expensive)
If however you plan to cross and than select for likeness to parent you might run into trouble. Than you no longer meet novelty and distinctness criteria.
If you however improve the parents enough for it to be distinct en novel it can be alright.
2 Likes
Big time from the standpoint of the name owners. They can’t protect their trademark so anybody can use the name honeycrisp, which means lost revenue to them.
I don’t see any way that has hurt Honeycrisp marketing.
People still know about Honeycrisp apples.
People still buy Honeycrisp apples.
Growers still get paid for growing Honeycrisp apples.
The loss of revenue to name owners, if any, is of little or no relevance to anything, especially at this point when Honeycrisp has already become a household name.
Marketing is not an entity that exists for its own sake, just like Honeycrisp are not apples that exists for their own sake. Marketing exists to support a commercial enterprise and the people that created the Honeycrisp brand (branding being part of marketing) royally screwed up by loosing exclusivity to the brand name that they worked to establish, which led to real losses to their marketing endeavors.
Look at how hard Disney keeps working on keeping their exclusivity to Mikey Mouse. Where they to loose that there will be a whole lot more Mikey Mouse in the marketplace, but the ability of Disney to profit from Mikey Mouse (their marketing) would suffer.
2 Likes
None of this has hurt Honeycrisp sales.
Honeycrisp was established through marketing back when the trademark was thought to be valid. At this point Honeycrisp’s brand is well established.
People still know about Honeycrisp apples.
People still buy Honeycrisp apples.
Growers still get paid for growing Honeycrisp apples.
Trademarks are restrictions on trade. There would be far more Disney movies and more marketing of those movies and more money made by more people, if Disney lost their copyrights and trademarks.
1 Like
We are having two different conversations here. Heck I’m happy they can’t enforce the name, I’m about to graft a bunch for fun and profit. But if you are talking about the OP, burning time and resources to develop a (hopefully) spectacular new variety, then spending a lot of money marketing said variety, his marketing would be an abysmal failure if he loses the right to the name and everybody muscles in to profit from it.
4 Likes
But Honeycrisp was NOT an abysmal failure. It made a lot of money for the creators and growers and many people continue to make money from growing it. Patents continue in effect regardless of trademark status. The idea that trademarks should extend beyond the expiration of patents is contrary to the basis of the patent system. The system intended the creator to have the patent period to allow them to profit, but our greed has allowed trademarks to effectively supercede patents.
The issue in the OP was very simple -
Can you cross the same two cultivars as a patented apple and sell it with your own name?
The answer to that question is “yes”.
2 Likes
The system of trademarks, patents and copyright being a system of greed is an issue onto itself. Copyright in the USA used to be much shorter than it is now but was corrupted by corporate greed from they company that profits off the free domain the most ironically. Patents can be corrupted in the same way if we think about it. Trademarks are a different issue where you sell it under a different name. Is it the Mountain rose apple or many of its other names for example.
2 Likes
They lost a ton of profits from one mistake. If you don’t think that if an issue that they should have avoided I don’t know that to tell you.
Again, I’m selfishly glad they did but from the standpoint of the entity introducing and monetizing them that was a fail on their part, even if it was a benefit to us.
2 Likes